The problem with the study is its not in line with this context. It's outdated in terms of social meta. It's misleading because it's built on respondents based on labels they identify as. Problematic for 2 reasons, 1 the army uses physical reality not subjective labels, 2 many of the people who identify as trans don't fit the army's definition, thus wouldn't be banned. And a large number of those responding to the surveys have life circumstances that don't fit with the context of active duty military. They aren't poor or homeless, they aren't being denied care, they aren't hiv positive.

I have no problem suggesting trans individuals that are seeking medical assistance in transition have a higher chance to attempt suicide, that's common knowledge. Just state it as common knowledge, stop lugging that poopy stat around like it's applicable in any measurable sense.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Jul 26 2017 11:48am

How many soldiers get transgender surgery? and does the surgery cost more than having to pay insurance for a big family?

From your first link:

The Costs of Gender Transition–Related Health Care Treatment Are Relatively Low

Using private health insurance claims data to estimate the cost of extending gender transition–related health care coverage to transgender personnel indicated that active-component health care costs would increase by between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually, representing a 0.04- to 0.13-percent increase in active-component health care expenditures. Even upper-bound estimates indicate that less than 0.1 percent of the total force would seek transition-related care that could disrupt their ability to deploy.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Jul 26 2017 11:51am

hmmm I see, sounds reasonable. never watched M*A*S*H

your info links either don't seem to make a case either way or just talk about the implications of being trans in the military
i just want a cost comparison if such a thing exists

This post was edited by chemoshots on Jul 26 2017 11:55am

Its the best available stat. If you have a better one, I'll use that. But lets not pretend the dramatic rates of mental illness and suicide among transgender people are nonconsiderations for generals who are grappling with a mental health epidemic in the armed services already. It doesn't have to matter whether its 41% suicide rate or 31% or 36% or whatever, but there's clearly an alarming correlation between being transgender and being nutty as a fruitcake. Now maybe thats not an implicit causation, maybe its societal factors. I don't know. But trannies aren't in the same spot that gays/lesbians were in prior to their civil rights movements, when they had established communities and normalization and their own subculture. Gay 'identity' was well defined and required no special considerations. The only barrier to including gays in the military was bigotry among the ranks, and social attitudes changed fast enough that too was a non-issue. Transgenders aren't in that same spot, where it can't even be divorced from mental illness definitively and requires high maintenance. But I don't see the latter at least being as a consideration for post-op trannies and without that, I don't think the mental faculty argument alone can be enough to bar them- they should be subject to the same mental fitness requirements as anyone else.



The amount of transgender soldiers is so small that the total costs are going to be insignificant. You couldn't build one jet fighter for the extra burden of all the transgenders in the military
But its a different picture when you look at the cost per capita, and can we say that a pre-op transexual who is going to need to spend a huge chunk of his contract non-deployable while needing disproportionate resources to maintain is going to be a net positive to the military?

Per capita, Trump's leisurely visits to Mar A Lago have cost us more as a nation in 6 months than every trans person in the military would incur over a period of 10 years.

both, considering she was 20x hotter before plastic surgery than any girl you've ever even mustered up the courage to talk to.

you can squabble about how big exactly of a financial impact transgender personnel in the military might have, but it won't change the fact that this is clearly a politically motivated move, an obvious distraction from the healthcare and russia issues...

This is what losing an arguement looks like.