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I’m a pretty disappointed in Harvard College Democrats. From the Harvard Crimson‘s Dems Open to ROTC Return:
Members of the Harvard College Democrats gathered last night to discuss whether the exclusion of trans-identified individuals from the military should prevent the return of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program to campus. Though the organization did not take a formal vote on the matter, those who spoke at the meeting by and large said that ROTC should be welcomed back to Harvard, despite objections over trans exclusion.
Given the National Center For Transgender Equality (NCTE), the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA – position statement here), and the school’s own Harvard Trans Task Force being against ROTC programs returning to the university campus — where colleges and universities, such as Harvard, have antidiscrimination policies that include gender identity — to many trans people that decision would be definitely appear wrongheaded. No doubt a vote favoring the return of an ROTC program at Harvard would be on the wrong side of history — as much as the 1993 congressional Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell vote was on the wrong side of history.
Citing a transgender person he knows at Harvard who was disqualified from joining the military because of his sexual identity, Jia Hui Lee ’12, a presenter from Harvard Trans Task Force, told the members about an ongoing petition reaffirming Harvard’s commitment to non-discrimination policy regardless of an individual’s gender identity.According to Lee, other countries in the world, including Thailand and Australia, allow transgender individuals to join the military.
And even minus the trans issue, there is the matter of the Pentagon not planning on including an antidiscrimination policy when lesbian, gay, and bisexual members are allowed to serve openly, and that the same-sex partners of lesbian, gay, and bisexual servicemembers will be not eligable for any benefits from the military — as the married spouses of heterosexual couples will be — are reason enough to to approve of ROTC return to college campuses.
And too, the vote would be very premature: lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are still not allowed as yet to serve openly.
If the Harvard College Democrats vote to come on the wrong, antitransgender and anti-LGB equality side of this issue, there will no doubt be consequences for that official position.
Bad, bad, bad. Harvard College Democrats, don’t do it.
9 Comments
Cart Before the HorseWhat groups are doing the work on a plan to grant transgender people the right to serve openly in our armed forces? Are they contacting the military? Congress?
What’s the timetable? Who’s covered? Does the plan allow for transition in place? Are you proposing that the VA cover genital reassignment surgery? How does the plan deal with people who have female breasts but male genitals and wish to remain that way? Will transmen with vaginas be berthed with regular male troops?
Folks are welcome to call me Elaine Donnelley, but then I hope they’ll address some of these questions. Of course, if there were an actual plan of action that someone could link to, that would help, too.
The only plan I see right now is trying to mount support via the ROTC issue to deny gays and lesbians access to the fruits of their hard-earned victory.
Ummm…did you read the entire piece?From the diary:
There are many reasons for opposing the return of ROTC programs — especially as yet, even if one would be for it — the trans issue I cite being one of several reasons.
bring them backthey been gone to long from the campuses bring them back ASAP
Ummm…yes.You have no answers to my questions? Every time you bring up the issue of the exclusion of trans people from our armed services, I always wonder what the plan is to change that. I’ve never seen the sort of nitty-gritty issues that will have to be dealt with discussed.
Let me see if I’m understanding your argument correctly:The ROTC has been unwelcome on a number of campuses because of their open and continuing unwillingness to abide by colleges’ non-discrimination policies. Is your position that, now that the ROTC will at some point in the future be coming into compliance in terms of one section of those anti-discrimination policies, that the rest should be ignored and the ROTC welcomed back? No, there isn’t a plan for immediate repeal of cis-supremacist military policies; but at the time when these campuses started implementing their nondiscrimination policies, there wasn’t an immediate plan to end DADT either. Maybe this will act as pressure on the supporters of the ROTC and military to bring a bit more ethics to the institution; but should the colleges in question amend their nondiscrimination policies to exclude trans protections for the sake of bringing back the ROTC?
They know the terms.They’ve been away from the campuses because they’ve been unwilling to accept nondiscrimination rules. To demand that they be “brought back” is to demand that these campuses compromise their ethics for the sake of letting the military dictate social policy.
Things as they are.
Most institutions of higher learning have an extensive list of classes against which they say they will not discriminate. But the military clearly does and will continue to exclude membership to those past a certain age and those with many common disabilities. As long as transgender people are classified as having a mental disorder, our conservative military will be highly unlikely to change its regulations to allow their service.
And as long as DOMA is on the books, the military will continue to deny a large suite of benefits to gay and lesbian service members and their dependents.
If there’s unjustifiable discrimination in the military,… the ROTC should not return. Why should they get an excuse for excluding transgender people who would make no problem while allowing criminals and people with real issues to serve?
The signal seems to be that it’s okay to be criminal or mentally ill as long as you are straight or cisgender.
I understand that.I’m trying to clarify your position as to whether universities should abandon their commitment to ethics for the sake of bringing specific groups onto campus.