The Weekly is a rundown of news by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission highlighting the week’s top news stories from the public square and providing commentary on the big issues of our day.

U.S. Army Begins Indoctrination on Transgender Policy

The U.S. Army has begun implementing mandatory training to educate soldiers on the service’s transgender policy, including how they must accept encounters with people who have “physical characteristics of the opposite sex” in barracks, bathrooms, and shower facilities.

This training is part of the policy put in place last year by President Obama’s Defense Secretary. In June 2016, Defense Secretary Ash Carter repealed the ban on allowing transgender men and women to serve openly in the military. At the time, Sec. Carter gave the services one year to implement any necessary changes.

Last week, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis put a 6-month hold on allowing additional transgender people from enlisting in the military. But the Trump administration has not reversed Obama’s previous policy, and the services have to make changes to accommodate this new social engineering.

Recently, James Hasson, a former Army captain and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, obtained a copy of the new ‘Tier Three Transgender Training’ materials the U.S. Army is now using in the mandatory training for all soldiers. The stated “learning objective” of the training is that the “Soldier understands Army policy on transgender military service has changed.” The document then outlines what has changed in regards to the new policy. Some of the changes include:

• If the “gender transition is medically necessary” the soldier “will be provided medical care and treatment for the diagnosed medical condition” at the taxpayer expense.

• Soldiers can change their gender simply by making a change to their personnel file (i.e., change their gender designation in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS)).

• Soldiers will be held to the standards of their gender marker in DEERS. In other words, by simply changing the “gender marker” in his paperwork, a man who identifies as a man will be allowed to use the lower physical fitness standards for women and can be restricting from serving in positions requiring routine exposure to direct combat.

• Soldiers will use the billeting, bathroom, and shower facilities associated with their gender marker in DEERS.

• Soldiers are told that is considered “gossip” to reveal a “Soldier’s gender identity, sexuality, medical challenges, and/or gender transition.”

• Soldiers are notified that the terms “sex” and “gender” are no longer the same. The training materials claim,

“Sex and gender are different. Sex is whether a person is male or female through their biology. Gender is the socially defined roles and characteristics of being male and female associated with that sex. There are a number of people for whom these associations do not match. This feeling may arise in childhood, adolescence or adulthood and may result in gender dysphoria.”

However, a few pages later, the document makes clear that “gender” will be treated the same as “sex.” For example,

"Service members providing a urinalysis specimen are observed by an individual with the same gender marker in DEERS.  In other words, for the purposes of interpreting these two Instructions in conjunction with one another, ‘sex’ in DoDI 1010.16 refers to the same thing as "gender" in DoDI 1300.28.”  

• Army commanders are told they must approach a soldier undergoing gender transition in the same way they would “approach a Soldier undergoing any medically necessary treatment.

• Soldiers going through the gender transition process may be eligible for “extended leave status or participation in other voluntary absence programs during the gender transition process” or receive special treatment, such as having their physical fitness test delayed.

• The PowerPoint presentation tells soldiers to “understand that you may encounter individuals in barracks, bathrooms, or shower facilities with physical characteristics of the opposite sex despite having the same gender marker in DEERS.”

• The document adds, “all Soldiers should be respectful of the privacy and modesty concerns of others. However, transgender Soldiers are not required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not ‘match’ other Soldiers.”

In reference to this last requirement, Hasson says, “This is a first. The military is normally in the business of telling soldiers to modify or adjust their behavior’ all the time.” Hasson also adds,

Consider what these policies mean in real life: Most Army showers look like a prison cell with several showerheads on the wall. Anyone who has dealt with the practical challenges of funneling 30 people through them in ten minutes understands that “privacy” will be incompatible with reality. Female soldiers who feel uncomfortable sharing facilities with individuals who still have “physical characteristics of the opposite sex” will just have to put up with it.

The Williams Institute, a pro-LGBT think tank estimates that currently there are approximately 15,500 transgender individuals serving on active duty or in the Guard or Reserve forces.

The Trump administration has made no sign they plan to repeal or reverse this policy.

This week on ERLC podcasts: Daniel Darling talks to Phil Vischer, founder of VeggieTales, about children's discipleship, theology and creativity, and what he learned from the rise and fall of a Christian media company. On the Capitol Conversations podcast, Matthew Hawkins and Travis Wussow talk to Senator James Lankford about assisted suicide and Russel Moore about criminal justice reform. And on the the Signposts podcast, Russell Moore talks about what to say at the funeral of an unbeliever

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