Banning trans people from the military makes America less safe

Supply and demand, opportunity and risk

Photo by Vony Razom on Unsplash

The U.S. Army missed its recruitment goal by nearly 25 percent in 2022 and 2023, amounting to a lack of about 30,000 troops. It hit its recruitment mark last year only because it reduced the target by more than 10,000. The Navy and Army Reserve haven’t met their benchmarks since 2016. That is to say: America has a military recruitment problem.

It’s a simple supply and demand issue: we need more supply of troops and/or less risk of active combat and a downsizing of the military.

With President Trump's reinstating his ban on transgender individuals in the military, the simple math problem expands into a real security problem not just for the U.S. but for advocates of a free and open society.

The Demand

Two ways I see the U.S. military lowering demand for recruits are by taking steps to mitigate potential security risks around the world. This means ensuring Russia knows it cannot invade its neighbors with impunity; providing precautionary support for Taiwan against Chinese aggression; drawing a line between defense and occupation with Israel; and committing support for NATO allies in scenarios of attacks on its territories.

Lowering demand for recruits also means being responsible for domestic security breaches (SignalGate), not downplaying election interference (RussiaGate), and curbing data exposure to foreign adversaries with the Chinese-influenced TikTok.

Another way to lower demand is by downsizing the military. Though the Trump Admin has been more focused than any recent Admin on cutting spending, Trump has asked Congress to increase defense spending by 13 percent to $1 trillion. With emerging warfare technologies using AI, drones, microchips, and so on, the U.S. cannot cut back on necessary security research and technological advancement. The fact that we haven’t been hitting our recruitment benchmarks is one reason the military is already shrinking, as many service members must fill multiple posts and positions. I don’t think further downsizing would help solve the problem while enhancing security measures.

The Supply

The Trump Admin insists that the decline in recruitment has a single cause: the Biden Admin’s efforts to promote DEI programs. I was curious about examples the Trump Admin had for DEI programs impeding recruitment, so I did some digging. As it turns out, one of the programs was the Pentagon’s Women, Peace and Security program—created to boost women’s participation and protect women from violence in conflict situations. It passed in 2017 in a Republican-majority Congress, and Trump signed it with support from SignalGate chatter and former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.

MAGA has a real problem with DEI: namely, they cannot distinguish between merit-based practices and non-merit-based ones.

For instance, the U.S. Army visiting more low-income communities, women’s organizations, or inner cities to find more recruits who would otherwise not sign up is probably a good thing. It provides more opportunities for individuals who may not have been exposed to it, if not for the explicit decision to visit those particular areas of the country. In any case, they must be qualified to join—the Army is simply offering more programs. On the bad side of DEI, the U.S. Army has a quota of minorities they must obtain, and so they reject qualified majorities for the position to get more unqualified minorities. But this isn’t happening in the military, especially when they need more Americans of any kind, size, or shape to sign up.

I think there’s an argument to be made that desperation on the part of the military itself may set up some lower standards. But it’s not because of the recruits’ skin color or gender makes them unable to perform; the desperation is due to the lack of interest and capabilities in joining the military. That problem can be helped with more people being offered the opportunity—also improving the nation’s security.

More than three-quarters of Americans between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four are ineligible because they are overweight, unable to pass the aptitude test, afflicted by physical or mental health issues, or disqualified by such factors as a criminal record. If most Americans aren’t eligible in the first place, if the interest in joining is declining, and the risks around the world (demand) is increasing, a ban on service members who are willing and able to sign up is a step in the wrong direction.

Trans people help alleviate our recruitment problem

Remember the branches of the military that had the lowest recruitment levels? The Army, Navy, and Reserves? Guess which branches trans individuals make up the highest percentage? The Army, Navy, and Reserves.

The most recent U.S. Trans Survey showed respondents served in the military at nearly twice the rate as the people in the U.S. population overall. There were 8,980 active duty transgender troops in 2019, according to Department of Defence data analysed by the Palm Center. Other figures provided by the NYT using strictly gender dysphoria diagnoses, instead of the DoD’s estimates of LGBT service members, said that number was only 4,240—about .2 percent of the military.

One argument I’ve seen for banning trans people in the military is that their surgeries and therapies cost taxpayers millions of dollars. According to U.S. military data, since 2015, when trans troops were first allowed to serve openly, the military has spent $52 million on their care, or about $9,000 per trans service member.

However, DoD data shows that about half of the troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria required no medical care at all and that LGBT personnel received routine medical care in percentages similar to non-LGBT personnel. What is the explanation for why we should pay for a cisgender’s prescriptions and surgeries but not for transgender’s? I have yet to hear or think of one that withstands moral scrutiny.

Trump is making things worse

The Admin escalating tensions with allies while reassuring adversaries has heightened the risk (demand) component of the situation. Trump's public disputes with Ukraine, indifference toward Taiwan, threats involving Greenland and Canada, and signaling to Russia that it could invade NATO, won’t contribute to making America’s military great again.

Trans people aren’t an obstacle to national security. They rise the ranks and fight in combat just like any other soldier would. The highest documented rank achieved by an openly transgender person in the U.S. military is Colonel Bree Fram. She is also the longest-serving openly transgender officer, having served since 2003 and coming out in 2016.

Here’s what she had to say about Trump’s second ban on transgender service members:

“[Transgender service members] bring an important part of themselves—their full, authentic self. The Armed Forces are not as robust as they used to be. And if you’re talking about discharging thousands of fully qualified service members, from a strategic perspective, that creates vulnerabilities and opportunities for our adversaries to exploit…

You have to realize that transgender service members meet all the standards. They’re deployed worldwide—even now—in the most austere locations possible. They’re on the land, in the air, on and under the sea; they are active combat warriors. They’re special operators, pilots, doctors, attorneys, nuclear engineers, and rocket scientists… They bring a lot to the fight.”

The Trump Admin claims that people with gender dysphoria threaten “military effectiveness and lethality.” But the reality is that one of the plaintiffs who sued the Admin’s second ban was a transgender Navy Commander. Four-Star Officer Dr. Rachel Levine made history as the nation’s most senior transgender official in the last Admin. And like Colonel Fram said, trans people are serving in critically important sectors of our defense and national security.

Nothing about trans people makes them inherently incapable of solving problems, creating effective strategies, collaborating with other service members, and doing a good job in their positions. Trump is cutting the supply and increasing the demand when supply is short and demand is high. Trump wants to win the culture war, and banning trans people from society in every way is one of his steps in achieving it; a shame he’s putting America’s security at risk for the sake of owning the libs.