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."

Comments

Cue the outrage!

[Train0987]

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?

Re:Cue the outrage!

[Captain Splendid]

In as universe where your opinion on this supersedes any medical authority, sure.

Re:Cue the outrage!

[argStyopa]

This is fairly disingenuous: yes, of course many homosexuals were drafted (and probably transgenders, although that as a legitimate CONCEPT and not a mental illness is relatively new) but in fact one of the few ways to actually successfully avoid the draft was to credibly convince your draft board that you were gay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"The United States military had a long-standing policy that service members found to be homosexual or to have engaged in homosexual conduct were to be court-martialed for sodomy, imprisoned and dishonorably discharged. However, with the mobilization of troops following the United States' entry into World War II, it became impractical to convene court-martial boards of commissioned officers and some commanders began issuing administrative discharges instead. Several waves of reform addressing the handling of homosexuals in the military resulted in a 1944 policy directive that called for homosexuals to be committed to military hospitals, examined by psychiatrists, and discharged under Regulation 615-360, section 8 as "unfit for service".[4] It is unknown exactly how many gay and lesbian service members were given blue discharges under this regulation, but in 1946 the Army estimated that it had issued between 49,000 and 68,000 blue discharges, with approximately 5,000 of them issued to homosexuals, while the Navy's estimates of blue-discharge homosexuals was around 4,000. The period of time covered by these estimates is unclear.[5]"

Hell, this continued well into Korea and even Vietnam, thus the schtick of Klinger and his constant attempt at Section 8 discharge in the popular TV show M*A*S*H.

So to suggest that "the army goes ahead and drafts LGBTs when they need them" is misleading at best. Historically, even during the draft LGBTs were considered at the very least insane and rejected from service if recognized as such.

Re:Cue the outrage!

[Tenebrousedge]

Trivially false. Gender identity is a result of hormonal action upon the brain, and that hormonal response necessarily happens as a separate process after the formation of the genitals. Please review the literature on the subject.

Re:Cue the outrage!

[tlhIngan]

You're wrong about that. A male who believes that he'll become female if he cuts off his penis has a mental disorder by every definition.

Except that's not what happens. You end up with a person who believes they are female, but has a penis. They never think they're male. They believe themselves to be female.

In fact, there is a very genetic reason for this - you have to remember that a female has two X chromosomes, while a male has one X and one Y. When conception begins, the Y chromosome is not active. In fact, the fertilized egg multiplies as if it was female - yes, that includes early development of ovaries and a vagina. sometime later, around two weeks or so, the genes in the Y chromosome start to assert themselves and deactivating certain genes in the X chromosome. In effect, the Y chromosome patches the X chromosome. (This is standard - some genes deactivate other genes at certain times).

So what happens? Well, the vagina descends and becomes the scrotum, while the ovaries descend as well and transform into testes. Other genes are involved with hormone production - testosterone and others replace estrogen production. It's a wonderful example of reuse, since the testes and ovaries perform similar functions - just one produces an egg, the other, sperm. But they are both involved in producing cells with half the chromosomes.

Now, all this takes time, and while for the vast majority of people, it definitely happens, but genetic defects do happen, as well as errors. It's entirely possible that only part of the X chromosome is patched properly, so you get some of the male transition happening, but not all of it. So you end up with someone who's a little more ambiguous, and this conflict between who they feel they are and how their body develops causes a great deal of internal stress.

Chopping off their penis doesn't make them female - they were ambiguous and felt female to begin with, but always was identified biologically as male. Gender reassignment surgery helps relieve internal stress by making their perceived sex the same as their physical sex.

Really twitter

[will_die]

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?

Re:Virtue signaling douche bags

[swan5566]

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

Re:Virtue signaling douche bags

[Tablizer]

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.)

New political function

[gachunt]

wait until $trump_decision != '';

foreach $personality ( @leftwing )
{
send_to_twitter( $personality . " is outraged at Trump for " . $trump_decision );
}

They already serve

[erexx23]

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.

Re:They already serve

[x0ra]

would you want a schizophrenic with borderline personality disorder to watch your back ? After all, they are part of the human race too.

It's like he thinks he's on Reality TV

[WillAffleckUW]

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?

Re:Virtue signaling douche bags

[Bradac_55]

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.

Re:Virtue signaling douche bags

[sycodon]

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.

Re:Virtue signaling douche bags

[Train0987]

Trans suicide rates are between 40-50% https://williamsinstitute.law.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Re:Virtue signaling douche bags

[Vasheron]

The why is important. From the second paper you linked,

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.

Re:Virtue signaling douche bags

[drinkypoo]

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Virtue signaling douche bags

[SlaveToTheGrind]

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.

I don't understand the outrage

[GodfatherofSoul]

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.