About the Supposedly Devastating Impact of that Supposed Transgender Ban in the American Military

The news media is calmly warning that Donald Trump is planning to ban transgender servicemembers from the American military, which will absolutely gut the armed forces.

Sample claim, from Newsweek, quoting the leader of an LGBT advocacy nonprofit:

"Abruptly discharging 15,000-plus service members, especially given that the military's recruiting targets fell short by 41,000 recruits last year, adds administrative burdens to war fighting units.

"There would be a significant financial cost, as well as a loss of experience and leadership that will take possibly 20 years and billions of dollars to replace."

We’ll practically have no military left! It would be like a whole infantry division suddenly just vanishing: 15,000-plus transgendered service members.

You’re going to see this number a lot in the weeks ahead. The New Republic, today: “Donald Trump’s plan to ban transgender people from the military would have a devastating effect: At least 15,000 members would be forced to leave.”

That number comes from a 2018 report by the now-defunct Palm Center, a pro-LGBT independent research institute in California, which reached this conclusion: “Transgender troops make up 0.7% (seven-tenths of one percent) of the military (Active Component and Selected Reserve).” Their best guess about a total number: 14,707. The media is just rounding that number up to the next thousand.

The Palm Center…extrapolated a lot, let’s say, in good part by multiplying their guess about a percentage, derived from a grossly inadequate survey of a select number of active duty troops, times the total number of servicemembers. Page 4:

Assuming that the distribution of transgender men and women is roughly equivalent in the Active and Selected Reserve Components, it is possible to derive an estimate of the number of transgender troops in the Selected Reserve as follows. The number of transgender women is .0066 x 652,623 = 4,307 and the number of transgender men is .0091 x 156,080 = 1,420. The total number of transgender members of the Selected Reserve is 4,307 + 1,420 = 5,727. And, the total number of transgender troops is 8,980 (active) + 5,727 (reserve) = 14,707.

Assuming the distribution, it is possible to derive an estimate. That’s the basis of the 15,000 number that you’ll see in news stories. Remember that language.

Similarly, a 2016 RAND study offered these findings (among others), and note the remarkable thing that happens between the first and second paragraph:

It is difficult to estimate the number of transgender personnel in the military due to current policies and a lack of empirical data. Applying a range of prevalence estimates, combining data from multiple surveys, and adjusting for the male/female distribution in the military provided a midrange estimate of around 2,450 transgender personnel in the active component (out of a total number of approximately 1.3 million active-component service members) and 1,510 in the Selected Reserve.

Only a subset will seek gender transition–related treatment. Estimates derived from survey data and private health insurance claims data indicate that, each year, between 29 and 129 service members in the active component will seek transition-related care that could disrupt their ability to deploy.

So studies indicate that there are 3,960 transgendered servicemembers, and also that there are 14,707 transgendered servicemembers, and “between 29 and 129 service members in the active component” who will actively seek gender transition services in a typical year.

So it’s definitely somewhere between 29 and 15,000.

A 2021 news story at military.com drilled down into some specifics about transgender health care in the armed forces, and the numbers again come in a little below 15,000:

The Pentagon has spent $15 million in the past five years to treat 1,892 transgender troops, including $11.5 million for psychotherapy and $3.1 million for surgeries, according to Defense Department data provided to Military.com

Of the 243 gender reassignment surgeries performed on military personnel since 2016, 50 took place between Jan. 1, 2016 and Dec. 31, 2017, and 193 occurred from Jan. 1, 2018 to Dec. 31, 2019 -- the two years after President Donald Trump announced via Twitter that he would bar transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military.

So 1,892 who actually identified as transgender and sought some form of treatment, including mere talk therapy, and a grand total of 243 over the course of five years who sought surgery. But the supposed risk of a transgender ban in the military, to go back up to the Newsweek story, is the abrupt loss of 15,000-plus servicemembers, a generational loss of knowledge and experience.

I’ve spent the day trying to drill down into the actual data, but there’s no data to drill into. What’s the rank or pay grade distribution of transgendered servicemembers? Dunno. What’s the distribution of transgendered servicemembers among military occupational specialties? Dunno. I’ve emailed a long series of specific questions to the DOD press office, asking for things like rank, branch, service, and occupational speciality data among transgender troops. I’ll send word if I get any of that.

I spent four years in the infantry, and don’t remember meeting a single transgender soldier. In a bar with other infantrymen, someone would now have to say, “I mean, except for Martinez.” And then Martinez would say something about your mom. Then everybody would drink some more.

But if — if — the Trump administration implements a policy to, for example, forbid the further service of troops who have had medical treatment for gender transition, which limits their deployability, the number of people who may be discharged from the armed forces will be well below this made-up estimated 15,000 number that you’re going to keep seeing. Depending on how such a policy would be written, the number may well turn out to be in the very low hundreds.

It’s hard to have a debate without knowing what’s being debated, and the fake numbers are an attempt to prevent discussion through a process of manufactured catastrophization — political activism posing as analysis. If you can imagine something like that happening.

By the way, looking at that sampling of headlines at the top, note that the New Republic calls a ban on transgender military service “extreme.” The military first allowed transgendered people to serve in 2016, after Barack Obama permitted that longstanding ban to stand through more than seven years of his eight-year presidency. Something that was normal for 243 years of our 248 year national history is now extreme. They aren’t moving the Overton Window — they’re covering it with a tarp and painting a fake window fifty feet away. “Look, look, there’s the window of normal discourse!” With paint still dripping down the wall.

“Extreme” is doing a lot of cultural work, these days. It may be time to let it get some rest.