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Tech Leaders Speak Out Against Trump Ban on Transgender Troops (axios.com)
Technology executives, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai took to social media to voice their displeasure over President Donald Trump's latest stance on transgendered people in the military.
"I am grateful to the transgender members of the military for their service," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "We are indebted to all who serve. Discrimination against anyone holds everyone back."
Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer said, "We honor and respect all who serve, including the transgender members of our military."
Salesforce said it "believes in equality for all. We support and thank all U.S. service members, including transgender Americans."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "Everyone should be able to serve their country -- no matter who they are."
Veteran entrepreneur Max Levchin urged support for transgender people across party lines. "Trans kids, soldiers etc need our support today and to know they are valued & respected regardless of politics. Let us not be divided."
Uber told news outlet Axios, "We owe the deepest debt of gratitude to all those who volunteer to serve in the US Armed Forces and defend our values. These patriotic Americans deserve to be honored and respected, not turned away because of who they are."
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, "Discrimination in any form is wrong for all of us."
"I am grateful to the transgender members of the military for their service," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "We are indebted to all who serve. Discrimination against anyone holds everyone back."
Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer said, "We honor and respect all who serve, including the transgender members of our military."
Salesforce said it "believes in equality for all. We support and thank all U.S. service members, including transgender Americans."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "Everyone should be able to serve their country -- no matter who they are."
Veteran entrepreneur Max Levchin urged support for transgender people across party lines. "Trans kids, soldiers etc need our support today and to know they are valued & respected regardless of politics. Let us not be divided."
Uber told news outlet Axios, "We owe the deepest debt of gratitude to all those who volunteer to serve in the US Armed Forces and defend our values. These patriotic Americans deserve to be honored and respected, not turned away because of who they are."
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, "Discrimination in any form is wrong for all of us."
The policy this is reversing has only existed about a year. Why are people acting like there was a trans brigade charging the shores of Normandy?
You say discrimination is wrong yet you actively censor things you don't like. Also don't you have a couple of sex discrimination lawsuit up against you?
One of the great thing about our country is that they are allowed to voice their opinion, whether you care to hear it or not.
Pot
Sorry, don't like it? Leave.
Kettle
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
So the US military will cease to be the target of more progressive social experiments for a few years. End of the world stuff right there; the virtuepocalypse is upon us!
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Agree. Why should tech CEO's or celebrities be a better source of general political ideas than Joe Sixpack? Opinions are like assholes: everyone has one. If they comment on technology as it intersects politics, then they can be considered subject matter experts; granted a biased one, but at least it would directly involve their field.
If military generals commented on this topic, it would be newsworthy because they have experience with military crew interaction. But if the military generals commented on say the iPhone's UI, their opinion is no more valid than Joe Sixpack's. (PS, yes, the Orange Man is a jerk.)
Table-ized A.I.
If that's the case, then why do we always see left-wingers resorting to censorship ("moderation") here, at reddit, and at so many other online discussion forums? Left-wingers only support freedom of speech when you're saying what they want to hear. Otherwise they want to silence you. We don't see this hatred of free speech from non-left-wingers.
wait until $trump_decision != '';
foreach $personality ( @leftwing )
{
send_to_twitter( $personality . " is outraged at Trump for " . $trump_decision );
}
What's passive aggressive. This is a major point of contention.
I don't give a rat's a$$ about who one marries, who one f**ks, how one dresses. Do what you want.
But the military cares about suicide rates. It's a problem. Add to that the well document FACT that transgendered people commit suicide at a far greater rate than the average person (whether or not they have had surgery) and they (the military) have a good reason to be concerned.
Whether they should or should not prevent transgendered people in the military is another issue. It is not, however, a bullsh!t consideration.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I am a Vet and a SGT. They already serve. They are in the service and are part of the human race. Ignorance is not bliss. Trumps myopic perspective ignorant at best and bigoted at worst.
Seriously.
As someone who spent seven years in active service, and trained many soldiers in Canada, worrying about someone's sexual orientation or whatever was dead last on my concerns. As in never spent a moment thinking about it, or caring about it.
Are we sure he's sane?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
But the military cares about suicide rates. It's a problem. Add to that the well document FACT that transgendered people commit suicide at a far greater rate than the average person (whether or not they have had surgery) and they (the military) have a good reason to be concerned.
Why them particularly? And do you have a citation that says that the suicide rate and/or other health outcomes are equal or worse for transgender persons in the military as opposed to the general population?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I also like, "I may not agree with the religious message on your bumper sticker. But I will defend your right to stick it."
This space unintentionally left blank.
Agree. Why should tech CEO's or celebrities be a better source of general political ideas than Joe Sixpack? Opinions are like assholes: everyone has one.
Because these particular assholes have agendas and PR images. Everything they do publicly is to bolster their PR image and further their agendas.
Their agendas include gaining wealth and gaining power, not helping the common man. In fact, screwing the common man is a common tactic.
No that's projecting your issues not the military's it has nothing to do with hatred.
per my other post:
As a former Army combat grunt It has nothing to do with "mental illnesses" there's plenty of non-sexual problems with people on the front line it's more about not needing the SJW bullshit that comes along with it.
I'm not going to treat you any differently than the rest of the assholes getting shot at with me and nearly all of the B & T'ers I've meet can't help but push there issues at everyone around them.
Hell my best friend at the time was gay but he didn't advertise or act any differently when the uniform was on. There's allot of that in the US military it's the ones that can't act like a normal soldier that has real problems.
The Military limits and even abrogates many rights simply due to the nature and mission of the organization.
We can't have people or missions endangered because of some SJW position.
The Generals have declared that is a danger.
The military doesn't pay for breast implants, they shouldn't pay for trans surgery. If they want to argue that they have to because it's a medical condition, then discharge them. People are discharged due to medical conditions all the time.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Trans suicide rates are between 40-50% https://williamsinstitute.law.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
The suicide attempt rate among transgender persons ranges from 32% to 50% across the countries. Gender-based victimization, discrimination, bullying, violence, being rejected by the family, friends, and community; harassment by intimate partner, family members, police and public; discrimination and ill treatment at health-care system are the major risk factors that influence the suicidal behavior among transgender persons.
See Train0987's post above for citations.
Okay, I found the post and well... I'm just starting to dig into the second citation and it is fucking garbage. I had to look at that one because the first site never actually responds. Hmm, with the power of google I found it on scribd. I'll look at that in a minute, but let's talk about the second paper first. Its most relevant sources do not exist. Not just a simple 404, I googled for the ones which they claim directly support the headline and there's nothing, nada, zip and zilch. And the other papers which they claim generally support their claim... don't support their claim. It is a garbage citation and we can safely wipe our asses with it.
The first citation is of generally higher quality, even though the study it is based upon includes only about 6,500 valid respondents when there are about 1.5 million transgendered people in the USA, and only 75% of those were transgendered people (the rest were other people who describe their gender in complex terms.) Further, it counts suicide attempts, not suicides. The study does not say what you guys want it to say. In particular, it says that the suicide rate among trans respondents was only slightly higher than the rest of the respondents in the study. If you're not going to ban gays from the military, there's no real justification for banning the transgendered.
Whoops, I actually read the citations! Guess I wasn't supposed to do that.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"The Generals have declared that is a danger."
The generals have very much NOT declared that it a danger.
The study from 2016 said it was no problem. The current study is not complete yet.
Meanwhile, the military is prohibited from selecting who it sees fit.
The first citation is of generally higher quality, even though the study it is based upon includes only about 6,500 valid respondents when there are about 1.5 million transgendered people in the USA
It's hard to discern your point here -- are you suggesting that kind of sample size is way outside the norm for a study like this, and that it therefore may have significantly skewed the results? This actually seems like a fairly healthy sample size, and the p-values throughout the study reflect that.
Further, it counts suicide attempts, not suicides.
Again, your point is unclear. You can't possibly be saying that we shouldn't pay attention to a massively disproportionate rate of suicide attempts simply because some of them weren't successful.
The study does not say what you guys want it to say.
Whether or not anybody "wants it to," here's what the study actually says (emphasis mine):
The prevalence of suicide attempts among respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality , is 41 percent, which vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime suicide attempt , and is also higher than the 10-20 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who report ever attempting suicide.
The " U.S. National Transgender Discrimination Survey " is a piece of shit, with poor methodology, huge selection bias, and they even admit that because the survey only had a budget of $3,000, they couldn't get a representative sample.
Any study based on that is doubly a piece of shit.
Anyone stupid enough to cite it is triply a piece of shit.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
+5 Insightful, really?
/. was a place where facts and nuance too precedence over bias and politics. Sadly, this place has changed.
The Generals have declared that is a danger.
Is there data to back this up or could it be just the bigoted opinion of a few jerks? The same things were said about blacks, gays, and women.
The military doesn't pay for breast implants, they shouldn't pay for trans surgery.
If paying for trans surgery was the issue then POTUS could have ended the military's policy of covering that procedure. There are about 15,000 trans people in the US military. If ALL of them had surgery (which they won't) at 100k a pop it would amount to 1.5 billion which is 0.1% of the cost of the F-35 program. This isn't about cost or "unit cohesion", this is about bigotry - just like it was for blacks, gays, and women.
I've always appreciated that
One of the great thing about our country is that they are allowed to voice their opinion
Yeah, tell that to Trump supporters in Portland. These days, being a Republican in a blue state can cost your your job, your friends, your property, your personal safety, even your life if you're not careful. It's part of what has driven me and many others away from the modern left.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I can't stand Trump, think he's already the worst President in our history, but I have no problems with this decision. I'm an army brat, I was in ROTC, went to basic, had all the training to be a military officer (just never signed up), and I know 1st hand and personally of people being either kicked out or prohibited from joining for all kinds of medical issues, some of them ancient history, some of their mildly debilitation. The idea that someone is going to physically alter their body in extremely intrusive fashion that requires all kinds of lifetime medical and even surgical regimens to maintain them and the military is supposed to 1.) pay for it 2.) make concessions for the other commitments to that surgery; is a real head scratcher.
My only problem is Trump obviously did it as another one of his twitter shiny bauble, public debate distractions.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, "Discrimination in any form is wrong for all of us."
Yet he's happy to do it when it can hurt conservatives.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Given that 62.7% have an identifiable mental comorbidity, and 81.4% have a personality disorder, I think there's a very, very high probability that the high suicide rate comes from mental illness rather than societal pressures.
You don't have much conception of the societal pressures. Personally, I dealt with varying levels of depression from about age 8 until fairly recently, and it's been precisely the realization of how much of that was due to external pressures that has been key to ending that. One of the more punishing mental traps is the idea that you are somehow shameful or wrong for being who you are. That is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, however. I mean, look at this forum; Slashdot is even one of the better-educated parts of the Internet.
As far as your studies go...oh boy. So the statistical error you're making is not considering or controlling for other confounding factors. Assault and various kinds of sexual and other abuse occur at a rate far higher than the general population, and these have well-documented effects on mental health. You're also interpreting a correlation as a causation, and specifically framing that causation in a manner which supports your prejudices when all evidence suggests the reverse. I also am forced to assume that you did not read anything of those studies beyond the abstract. You might have noticed that the one was published in "Psychiatry Journal", the other in "Medical Journal of Islamic Republic of Iran", and both of them were done in Iran. Even if there were some reason to believe that these were valid journals or good science, there's no justification for assuming that these figures correspond to conditions in the Western world.
So to repeat, I did ask for something other than the first paper that came to hand. And a minimum standard of politeness would involve reading it first.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.