Trans Colonel Has Many Opinions

None supported by facts or reason

Grant Smith

and

J.D. Haltigan

Mar 08, 2024

About the Author:
Grant Smith
is a board certified Army Physical Therapist supporting the development and execution of the Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) program at the operational level. Seeing radical political ideology become normative across the military, and recognizing the associated adverse impacts to both organizational and individual performance, he is compelled to challenge unfounded claims made by fellow officers advancing personal ideology under the auspices of performance optimization and “readiness.” The opinions expressed in this article are his own and do not express the official policy or position of the Department of Defense (DoD) or the U.S. Government.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

―Voltaire

Bree Fram is a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Space Force (USSF) where she works to promulgate LGBTQ+ initiatives as an astronautical engineer. Back in August of 2023 she wrote an opinion article for Military Times expressing concern that banning gender affirming care would have adverse impacts on service members and their families. Given the way I was treated throughout the military C19 vaccine mandate along with tens of thousands of other service members without so much as an apology, I am skeptical that this concern is warranted given the context of the current challenges the military faces as an organization. If Bree had any persuasive arguments to convince me otherwise, she didn’t include them in this article. You don’t need to take my word for it though, lets take a look and see why Bree thinks gender affirming care is such a critical component of DoD’s spending.

Trans Troops Accomplish Things

Bree begins her article by justifying her assertion that trans troops have been “lauded for their accomplishments” by linking to some data her independent non-profit organization put together based on self-reported metrics provided by trans troops. The accomplishments tracked included things like medals, awards, re-enlistments, and promotions. These are all standard features of military service. To suggest that this indicates service “with distinction” is hyperbole. To serve with distinction means to be differentiated, meaning it can’t be merely referencing accolades that apply to almost everyone in the military. An example of a USSF officer who served with distinction is Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier. He was promoted double below-the-zone (that is to say two years earlier than normal) to Lieutenant Colonel, a distinction earned by only the top 1% of officers.1

This clarification could be attacked as pedantic, but it is nevertheless critical to highlight. The hyperbolic, exaggerative language used by Bree is characteristic of radical progressive activists and is used in the service of legitimizing a preposterous assertion. It is meant to persuade casual or uninformed readers, especially those unfamiliar with military service, that there are large numbers of trans troops that are top performers. Some might be, but most aren’t. A fair and accurate interpretation of the statement Bree opened with is “some trans troops seem to be able to meet requirements.” But at what cost? We’ll get to that, first more arguments to dismantle.

Some Americans Support Trans Troops

The next argument centers around the popularity of transgender troop bans with the American public. First of all, I happen to believe public opinion is very important. We are the Army of the American People after all, as Mark Milley liked to say. In order to justify her assertion that the “overwhelming majority of Americans — more than 70% — supported their opportunity to serve” she relied on the linked Gallup Poll. But polling like this will have drastically different answers depending on the questions asked. For example, even within that same poll, the majority of Americans opposed transgender individuals using a different bathroom than what corresponds to their biological sex. As Bree knows all too well, the military has mandated that service members are required to use the restroom that corresponds not to their biological sex, but to the gender indicated in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS), which changes in conjunction with gender transition in the military. This means we can plausibly extrapolate that the majority of Americans would not support current DoD transgender policy. This isn’t the only aspect of transgender policy that is unlikely to be popular, however, and this goes into how polling questions are constructed.

What if I were to tell you that 18-20 year old female service members are currently being coerced into showering with intact biological males who identify as trans women? This has already happened in the US Military. Does any rational person think the majority of Americans are comfortable with that? Maybe some are, but there is another emerging scenario unfolding that is almost certainly even less popular. As an email to Sam Shoemate at Terminal CWO reads:

“I am in a UPL course right now. Class is 20 service members. Observers and Transgenders was the topic of debate and it was heated. So, our instructor said that as of recent, the gender of observer will have to be what they identify on DEERs. Being the savage I am, I had many questions.
I asked if a female was not comfortable observing can she refuse. The instructor didnt know. Luckily we had a recent EO rep in the class. She said, as a female observing a transitioning male to female, I cannot refuse because I will be subjected to an EO complaint. I said “I will take the EO complaint gladly as long as I dont compromise MY integrity or moral courage AND follow my values for my spouse and religion. So, that is a ‘no’ from me.”
She got angry and tried debating. I said “if they have a PENIS, I am not dishonoring my marriage and my husband! I dont care, the Army can kick me out.”
I told my commander that I won’t do it or allow a biological male to observe me. I have a SHARP and EO complaint if they make me do this, and I asked to be briefed ahead of time if we have a transgender taking a urinalysis or being an observer.
Today is day 2 of the class, and the instructor slapped three documents in front of us that we dont have a choice and have to observe a biological male even if he has the parts associated. I’m not doing it.”

After publishing this, reports began to emerge of this actually happening as Sam reports:

So just to be clear, Unit Prevention Leaders (UPLs) are required to observe with direct eye contact/line of site the urine leave the body. On multiple occasions female service members have already been required to stare at a transgender service member’s penis or be subject to disciplinary action. What percentage of Americans do you think support that? Probably less than the minority who oppose switching up bathrooms per the cited poll.

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Diversity and Performance

Perhaps the most asinine assertion in the entire piece, but also the most difficult to address due to its reliance on the complete ideological commitment of academia and elite business institutions to bioleninism, pertains to diversity and performance. According to Bree, “an overwhelming body of research has shown how diverse teams increase performance.” That’s it, folks! It is overwhelming! Case closed. Pointless to question, but I’ll do so anyway because that hyperlinked body of evidence rests on a foundation of quicksand. The famously evil McKinsey & Company noted that highly diverse companies are more profitable. In a market economy this data would be worthy of consideration, but when interconnected Megacorps controlling trillions in capital like BlackRock and Vanguard confer special privileges to companies based on ESG scores which are in turn optimized by, you guessed it, being “highly diverse”, there is no point at which performance enters into the calculus of this equation. Other evidence used to support this notion of a nexus between diversity and performance relies on academics infected with the same ideological biases. When such individuals pick arbitrary performance metrics and apply them in a laboratory setting in order to draw some of the most contrived conclusions I’ve ever seen, I don’t find it particularly persuasive.

Meanwhile, outside the ivory tower echo chamber, the military has measured the performance impacts of “diversity”, and has demonstrated that it decreases it, and markedly so. Beyond this, in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo indicated that they had no evidence DEI initiatives have had an impact.2 That hasn’t stopped officers like Bree from baselessly asserting that it is “essential for readiness”, however, and why should it? If some people feel like something is important, isn’t that enough? And how dare anyone suggest it isn’t important, especially considering that doing so would hurt feelings, and hurting feelings isn’t inclusive.

Transgenderism, Recruiting, and Retention

The last specious argument Bree makes is more straightforward pointing to the high prevalence of gender dysphoria in Gen Z and the recruiting and retention crisis then drawing precisely the wrong conclusion. Something typical of those with the unconstrained worldview as described by Thomas Sowell in his book Conflict of Visions is to assume that there are no tradeoffs in life. To assume in this circumstance that allowing transgender service members to enter the military and to fund their gender affirming care while, say, denying medication prescribed by a physician in support of limb salvage efforts for a tier 1 operator wounded in combat won’t have any adverse impact on recruiting and retention is folly.

This is the denial note received by a Soldier at risk of losing a limb due to an injury sustained in combat. If he was a female trying to transition to being a male, this medication would have been approved without delay.

Blind to these dynamics, Bree appears to instinctively consider anyone who lacks enthusiasm for what transgender troops bring to the military relative to the warriors who fought and bled throughout GWOT to be bigots unworthy of service themselves.

And this is really the heart of the matter. Who is worthy to serve? The classic answer to that question is the ones who are best equipped to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against foreign and domestic enemies. It seems like the new answer is “politically useful clients of the ruling class.”

Unless this changes, service members will continue voting with their feet and the few young, healthy, and fit Americans we have left will want nothing to do with an organization that despises them for their excellence. Meanwhile, Bree will enjoy a couple key benefits. First, a six figure paycheck annually adjusted for the inflation caused by reckless deficit spending that she will continue to earn as long as she so desires regardless of her work performance. Second, endless narcissistic supply from an organization that has functionally banned questioning her baseless and self-serving assumption that transgender service members and gender-affirming care are undeniably essential features of the US Military. This postmodernist narcissistic sensibility is epitomized when Bree writes:

Conservative lawmakers are trying to turn back the clock, when it’s clear the majority of Americans, and troops themselves, understand that society benefits when all of us have the opportunity to be our best selves: to work, to live, to love authentically. (italics added).

On Self-Serving Interest

Bree closes her stunning and brave defense of gender-affirming care with this:

“Denying gender-affirming care only serves those who would vilify it out of self-serving interest, fear, or ignorance.”

I have to admit, this sentence is impressive if only for how rhetorically devious it is hearkening to the fatal conceit baked into the cake of liberalism. After writing an entire article packed with specious arguments unsupported by fact or reason, Bree denigrates anyone who disagrees with her as scared, stupid, or self-interested. I don’t think Bree is scared or stupid, but this does beg the question: What could be more central to the self-serving interests of an Active Duty trans woman than promoting continued military support for gender-affirming care? This one sentence exposes a plain truth that we can no longer afford to ignore. We are all self-interested. Those who claim otherwise are simply dressing up their self-interest in narratives of altruism. We need to stop pretending it is possible to delimit our biases as if we’re not an active part of this world. The only way to be an effective part of an organization is for your individual purpose to be aligned with the purpose of the organization. Your self-interest then becomes inextricably linked to the ability of the organization you serve to fulfill its ostensible purpose. If affirming Bree’s gender identity is central to the purpose of the United States Military, then there ought to be strong rationale demonstrating as much. After all, penile inversion vaginoplasty isn’t cheap, nor is compelling Bree’s coworkers to affirm her gender identity under threat of punitive action. In light of her failure to do so, I’ll offer an alternative narrative to try to make sense of the moment.

Gender-Affirming Care Harms Military Readiness

As recently leaked internal communications from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) reveal, gender-affirming care broadly consists of “pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments on children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults.” Indeed, one of the motivating forces for gender-affirming care—that social stigma is responsible for both the mental health suffering of transgender individuals and for limiting their access to gender-affirming care (both of which Bree implicitly or explicitly regurgitates in her piece)—are dubious claims that have not received any convincing empirical support when subjected to rigorous scholarly and empirical scrutiny3.

Using taxpayer dollars to fund these unethical and harmful experiments violates statutory legal requirements pertaining to medical research. Moreover, these treatments are funded under the auspices of “healthcare” which the WPATH leaked documents reveal to be an inappropriate characterization of gender-affirming care.

Threatening adverse action against service members unwilling to affirm transgender troops constitutes compelled speech and is consequently a clear violation of 1A. Enforcing this unconstitutional standard on troops who swore an oath to defend that Constitution represents an existential threat to the spiritual foundation of the United States Military.

The presence of military healthcare providers supportive of 7-year-old children being involved in the decision to undergo these treatments in the force is an indictment of the credibility of military medicine (the credibility of which is critical to the covenant between these professionals and the warriors who sign on to risk life and limb in combat should the call arise). These providers and those sympathetic to this position pose a significant danger to this covenant and these vulnerable children.

Doctors David A. Klein and Noelle Larson; clinical psychologist Natasha A. Schvey. (Uniformed Services University | Walter Reed National Military Medical Center)

Sterilizing the children of service members harms readiness. Incentivizing costly and demonstrably harmful medical experiments on troops with gender dysphoria (or probably more commonly autogynephilia)4 harms readiness. Subverting Constitutional and legal norms harms readiness. At least, that is my contention. Understanding that the view just espoused is diametrically opposed to Bree’s, how do we resolve this dispute? After much consideration, I think it all comes down to accountability.

Military Accountability

When a policy has measurably disastrous impacts on performance, what are the consequences? In the modern cryptocracy, the answer is almost always “none.” The issue of transgenderism in the military is complex. I don’t deny that some trans service members can and have made valuable contributions to the military, I just seriously doubt current policy represents the best trade off towards optimal warfighting capability. I’m inclined to believe that transgender individuals can serve without too much disruption as long as they continue to use accommodations designated for their biological sex and their presence doesn’t detract from overall mission capability. This would entail requiring self-funding of gender-affirming care and use of personal leave as necessary to pursue that path. It would also require trans individuals to develop a thick skin and not expect others to use their preferred pronouns. This type of reasonable accommodation doesn’t seem to be on the table however.

Forced integration and bankrolling of gender-affirming care for military service members is a grand social experiment that hasn’t been demonstrated to be worth the risk. The military is moving forward with it nonetheless, and it isn’t unreasonable to attribute abysmal recruitment, retention, and objective assessments of warfighting readiness to this and other equally novel experiments. So what can be done?

If the brass can get away with decimating readiness by unlawfully mandating an experimental gene therapy on the force, then they can get away with allowing military doctors to pharmacologically sterilize 7-year-old children. Considering the former issue, Commander Rob Green considered how such flagrant violations of the law and constitutional rights within the military might be thwarted going forward. He came to the determination that individual accountability is the answer. If the individuals responsible for promulgating the unlawful C19 vaccine mandate face real consequences, such as a Court Martial or having legislation passed eliminating their retirement pay, those tempted to violate the law in the name of political expediency in the future may think twice. This is why a group of 231 service members have signed the Declaration of Military Accountability that Rob drafted pledging to do everything legal, moral, and ethical within our power to hold senior military leaders accountable for their unlawful actions. Perhaps this same strategy can be effective towards holding those who provide and promote gender-affirming care accountable in a similar fashion. That is of course if it turns out that these pseudoscientific experimental treatments are causing the grave and permanent harm the WPATH leaks seem to indicate.

If you’re interested in pursuing accountability along with the original 231 signatories of the DMA, please visit www.militaryaccountability.com where you can see the initial declaration, join the 30k+ signatories of the petition, and be involved in this effort to restore accountability in the United States Military.

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