How it happens6:39Trump Administration Adds Transgender Military Pure
After 17 years in which her country was used in the US Navy, Lt. Rae Timberlake before a strong choice – leave the military or have been thrown out.
After some soul search, Timberlake chose the former, hoping that at least they will receive the severance payment and an honorary discharge.
Timberlake is one of around 1,000 transgender service members who have so far registered the first phase of their transgender military flushing for what the Republican administration described as “voluntary separation”.
“This is not a voluntary separation,” said Timberlake How it happens Host Nil Kӧksal. “That is compulsion.”
Ultimatum with a deadline
The efforts of US President Donald Trump to ban transgender people from the military were hindered by judicial challenges.
On Tuesday of last week, however, the United States’s Supreme Court ruled that the administration can enforce its prohibition while this legal challenges compete.
Two days later, the US defense minister Pete Hegseth published an ultimatum with a period.
In a memo of military directors On Thursday, the former Fox News moderator said that the members of the Transgender Service have time until June 6th have time to identify themselves and to start the process of “voluntary separation” from the US military. Troops in the reserve staff have until July 7th.
Those who report to the memo says “can also be justified for a voluntary separation payment.”
After the deadline, the department says that it goes through medical documents from the military members in order to eradicate all remaining transgender troops and start a process of “involuntary separation”.
Although it is not clear what exactly that will look, say military members that this could mean a loss of performance, including a pension and health insurance.
“This creates a kind of veiled threat,” said Timberlake, a spokesman for Sparta Pride, a non-profit organization that is committed to trans-people in the military.
“I feel threatened. I know that many other transgender service members feel threatened. I think we earn much better.”
Jennifer Levi, Senior Director at the Pro-LGBTQ Legal Group Glad Law, agrees.
“It’s just shameful,” said Levi. “It is pointless to pursue people from the military who meet the standards and risk life to defend the country.”
“No more pronouns”
Hegseth defended the decision.
To express “a false” gender identity “from the gender of an individual, the strict standards that are necessary for military service cannot satisfy,” he wrote in his memo.
“The service of people with current diagnosis or history or symptoms that are in line with gender dysphoria is not in the best interest of military services and does not clearly match the interests of national security.”
During a press conference with US special operations, he spoke bluntly.
“No more pronouns,” he said. “Nore types in clothes.”
Lack of personnel
It is unclear how many troops the military will ultimately lose against cleaning the Trump government.
Defense officers said that gender dysphoria in 4,240 troops who are currently active in the active service, a term for the psychological stress, which results from an incongruity between gender identity and assigned gender at birth.
But not everyone who is transgender has been diagnosed, and earlier estimates in the department suggested that there were between 9,000 and 12,000 trans people in the military.
According to Timberlake, so many people will be a challenge for a military that is already understaffed.
“This affects everyone,” they said. “There will be fewer people to fulfill the mission. It will have more work for the other team members.”
Army Maj. Alivia Stehlik, who served in the infantry and is now a physiotherapist, repeated this feeling.
“I still have a job to do,” she said. “My command expects me to appear and officer and do my job because I am the only person in my unity that can do what I do.”
What happens next remains unclear. Timberlake is still in active service and is on the day when this is no longer the case.
“If you know that a day could be my last day, it’s a difficult place.”
With files from Reuters and the Associated Press. Interview with Rae Timberlake from Livia Dyring produced
