Study Urges U.S. Military to Reconsider Ban on Transgender Personnel
A new study focusing on gender, sexuality and the military found “no compelling medical reason” to leave intact a ban on transgender people serving in the military.
A report, released by the Palm Center at San Francisco State University, explains that “transsexualism” is a condition banned in military regulations but now recognized by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual under the name “gender dysphoria” and is considered a “condition that is amenable to treatment.”
“Arguments based on mental health are not convincing rationales for prohibiting transgender military service, and [the ban] is not consistent with modern medical understanding,” the report argues. “Scientists have abandoned psychopathological understandings of transgender identity, and no longer classify gender non-conformity as a mental illness.”
