CMR Calls on Mattis to Revoke Obama Holdover Transgender Mandates
The Center for Military Readiness has released a comprehensive CMR Special Report analyzing fifteen Obama-era Pentagon directives and training documents promoting retention and eventual recruiting of transgenders in the military:
Department of Defense & Military Services Should Revoke
Problematic Transgender Policy Directives and Instructions
The 27-page document reveals and analyzes President Barack Obama-era policies, which order the armed forces to assume the risks of retaining and recruiting a cohort of persons who are suffering from gender dysphoria ˗ a difficult condition involving confusion about gender identity. Gender dysphoria and its treatments are among several psychological conditions that negatively affect personal deployability and mission readiness.
In an op-ed published by Military Times, Elaine Donnelly, President of CMR, denounced the efforts of Obama Administration holdovers in the Pentagon who continue to implement transgender directives and training programs, as if the presidential election never happened.
Wrote Donnelly, “We don’t need a “mad dog” or a sleeping dog – we need a vigilant and fearless watch dog who will strengthen our military by restoring sound priorities that are long overdue.”
Problematic transgender mandates include:
- Open-ended costs for lifetime hormone treatments and sometimes irreversible surgeries. (Transgender advocates demand special status for recruits seeking lifetime medical benefits despite deployability problems. They also demand coverage for veterans in an already over-loaded system, and for family dependents, including minor children);
- Infringements on personal privacy in conditions of forced intimacy;
- Demoralizing pressures on military commanders, doctors, and nurses to approve, participate in, or perform procedures that violate medical ethics or sincerely-held personal or religious convictions;
- Negative impacts on morale and cohesion when transgender treatment side effects negatively affect combat deployability and readiness;
- Establishment of a network of remote “Service Central Coordination Cells” (SCCCs) allowing LGBT consultants to politicize the Military Health System;
- Erosion of trust in military leaders who endorse medical delusions; and
- Diversion of scarce time and resources in pursuit of politically-correct social agendas that are not consistent with sound priorities in the military.
According to an AP report, the Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force requested two-year delays in implementation of problematic policies. Instead of honoring those requests, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work, an Obama holdover, appears to have arm-twisted the dissenting service chiefs to settle for a delay of only six months.
This unsatisfactory option would help to achieve auto-pilot implementation of transgender mandates during the Christmas season, when no one is looking. (Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his Deputy Bob Work pulled the same type of maneuver in December 2015 when they ignored the Marine Corps’ research-based request for exceptions to women-in-the-infantry mandates.)
Deputy Secretary Work also allowed Anthony Kurta, the Obama holdover Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness, to call for and participate in an inappropriate special-interest “LGBT Pride” event at the Pentagon on June 12. This happened even though President Donald Trump correctly declined to issue an authorizing proclamation.
A native of Richland, Washington, Secretary Mattis enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve at the age of 18. After graduating from Central Washington University in 1971, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps.
During his more than four decades in uniform, Secretary Mattis commanded Marines at all levels, from an infantry rifle platoon to a Marine Expeditionary Force. He led an infantry battalion in Iraq in 1991, an expeditionary brigade in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terror attack in 2001, a Marine Division in the initial attack and subsequent stability operations in Iraq in 2003, and led all U.S. Marine Forces in the Middle East as Commander, I Marine Expeditionary Force and U.S. Marine Forces Central Command.
Donnelly called on President Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis to respect the original Army, Air Force, and Marine requests and to make their concerns public. “This is even more important since Marine General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently told a Senate committee that there have been some issues identified with recruiting transgender individuals that ‘some of the service chiefs believe need to be resolved before we move forward.’“
She added, “Secretary Mattis and members of Congress should invite medical experts (not LGBT activists) to present testimony addressing the transgender issue in terms of military readiness, not political correctness taken to extremes. There is no good time to implement a bad policy”
On May 16, 85 civilian organization and retired military leaders signed a Conservative Action Project Memo for the Movement:
The CAP Memo expressed support for the priorities Secretary of Defense Mattis set during his confirmation hearing: mission readiness, command proficiency, and combat effectiveness.
“The process of strengthening our military will not succeed, however, if military service personnel have to contend with problematic military/social policies imposed by the Obama Administration – policies that actually impede mission readiness, command proficiency, and combat effectiveness.”
The newly-released CMR Special Report includes links to extant Department of Defense and military service directives, instructions, handbooks, roadmaps, toolkits, and mandatory training briefings that Secretary Mattis should personally review and revoke administratively without further delay.
For more information or to arrange an interview with Mrs. Donnelly, please call 734/464-9430 or send an email message to [email protected].
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Elaine Donnelly, a protege of Phyllis Schlafly’s, organized a concerted effort to inhibit women’s advancement into nontraditional roles. Through her Center for Military Readiness, Donnelly staunchly fought any progress in this area and singled out for special attack the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services …