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The U.S. military is a massive institution, and its policies on sex, gender, and sexuality have shaped the experiences of tens of millions of Americans, sometimes in life-altering fashion. The essays in Managing Sex in the U.S. Military examine historical and contemporary military policies and offer different perspectives on the broad question: \"How does the U.S. military attempt to manage sex?\" This collection focuses on the U.S. military's historical and contemporary attempts to manage sex-a term that is, in practice, slippery and indefinite, encompassing gender and gender identity, sexuality and sexual orientation, and sexual behaviors and practices, along with their outcomes. In each chapter, the authors analyze the military's evolving definitions of sex, sexuality, and gender, and the significance of those definitions to both the military and American society.

The U.S. military can be thought of as a microcosm of American society, bringing in people from diverse backgrounds and history to defend one nation. Military leaders must address the same issues and concerns as those found in the civilian world, including exclusion, segregation, and discrimination. In some cases, the military has led the nation by creating policies of inclusion before civilian laws required them to do so. In other causes, the military has lagged behind the larger society. The goal of this book is to provide an overview of the ways in which diversity has been addressed in the military by providing information about particular forms of diversity including race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexuality. Subject matter experts provide their insights into the roles that each of these groups have played in the U.S. armed services as well as the laws, rules, and regulations regarding their participation. Ultimately, the authors utilize this information as a way to better understand military diversity and the unique ways that individuals incorporate the military into their sense identity.

The 2018 SXSW Audience Award-winning feature film debut by Gabriel Silverman, Fiona Dawson, & Jamie Coughlin, TransMilitary follows the Emmy-nominated short film Transgender, at War and in Love. Around 15,500 transgender people serve in the U.S. military (notably the largest transgender employer in the U.S.), where they must conceal their gender identity because military policies ban their service. TransMilitary chronicles the lives of four individuals (Senior Airman Logan Ireland, Corporal Laila Villanueva, Captain Jennifer Peace & First Lieutenant El Cook) defending their country's freedom while fighting for their own. They put their careers and their families' livelihoods on the line by coming out as transgender to top brass officials in the Pentagon in hopes of attaining the equal right to serve. The ban was lifted in 2016, but with President Trump now trying to reinstate it, their futures hang in the balance once again.

Talks to Flying Officer Mark Mieremet, Lance Corporal Sawyer Coote, Sapper Tony Eaglestone, and Corporal Marcia Cooper about life in the New Zealand Defence Force as transgender personnel openly transitioning while serving. Speaks with Flight Lieutenant Hemi Frires about what the Defence Force can offer the LGBTQI community, and the formation of OverWatch, a group that provides support and guidance to New Zealand Defence Force's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning (GLBTIQ) community, as well as to their commanders and managers, families, friends and colleagues. Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.

IntroductionMost transgender individuals are banned from serving in and joining the U.S. military. Historically, exclusions and limits have been placed on women, people of color, and sexual minority people seeking to serve and advance within the U.S. military. However, both history and prior research demonstrate that diversity contributes to social and institutional advancement within both U.S. and international militaries.MethodsWe used an adapted respondent-driven sampling (RDS) approach to recruit transgender and cisgender heterosexual and LGB active duty military members in a first-of-its-kind study funded by the Department of Defense. We recruited 540 active duty service members serving one of the four major branches of the U.S. military between August 2017 and March 2018. We examined data from 486 heterosexual cisgender and LGB cisgender service members to understand their support for transgender people serving in the U.S. military.ResultsFindings indicate broad support for transgender military service across all four branches of the military and military ranks, with some statistically significant differences in support emerging by gender, sexual orientation, and race/ethnicity.DiscussionResults suggest that the ban, in part, based on a belief that transgender service members degrade unit readiness, contradicts our findings of broad support for transgender service among active duty service members.Policy ImplicationsPolicies limiting transgender service in the U.S. military should be lifted given these data.

In the United States, 1.4% of youths between the ages of 13 and 17 years (or approximately 300 000 adolescents) identify as transgender or genderdiverse (TGD),1 indicating that their gender identity, expression, or perception does not conform to the traditional gender roles and stereotypes associated with their assigned sex.2 The recent increase in adolescents and young adults reporting a TGD identity is thought to be due to increased awareness of the full range of gender identities, social acceptance, and improvements in medical care.1-4 Greater acceptance supports wellness.2 Indeed, in a study examining the health of those referred to care between 2000 and 2016, those recently referred seemed to have better psychological functioning than those referred previously, whereas a similar proportion across the study time period chose to initiate gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (GnRH-a; used for puberty suppression) or gender-affirming hormones.4Similar trends have occurred in the Military Health System (MHS). The number of new pediatric-age patients presenting for gender-affirming care in the MHS increased from 109 individuals a year in 2010 to over 600 a year in 2016.3 In 2017, when gender-affirming medical care was included in the list of TRICARE benefits for about one year, at least 2500 children actively sought care for gender dysphoria through TRICARE Prime insurance at military or civilian treatment facilities, and 900 received GnRH-a or gender-affirming hormones

Transgender adults serve in the U.S. military at 2 to 3 times the rate of the general adult population. Unfortunately, transgender veterans die by suicide at twice the rate of their cisgender veteran peers and approximately 5.85 times the rate of the general population. This article reviews the literature regarding the prevalence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in transgender veterans. Suicide risk and resilience factors are reviewed, and future areas of study are detailed that incorporate findings from the broader suicide-prevention literature and research on transgender mentalhealth disparities. Individual services and broader prevention considerations are discussed, including the adaptation of evidence-based suicide-specific psychological interventions, national transgender health-training resources, and relevant veteran suicide-prevention initiatives. Finally, U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs policies regarding transgender service and health care are reviewed. State-level policies relevant to transgender veteran suicide such as firearm ownership and nondiscrimination laws are also reviewed, and their implications for suicide prevention are discussed. The aim of this article is to provide a broad review of research findings from multiple fields of study to assist health-care providers, researchers, and policymakers in their efforts to prevent transgender veteran suicide.

Background United States military policies regarding service by transgender service members have shifted several times within the past decade. The relationships between policy changes and electronic health record documentation of gender dysphoria, a current and historic policy requisite for gender affirming care receipt, in active duty service members remain unknown. Methods Bayesian estimator of abrupt change, seasonality, and trend models identified changepoints in the proportion of service members who had new and then historical medical record documentation consistent with gender dysphoria from January 2015 to August 2022. Changepoints were evaluated as they related to salient military policy-related events. Results Approximately 3,853 active duty and activated National Guard or Reserve service members received a documented diagnosis corresponding to gender dysphoria from January 2015 to August 2022. Four significant changepoints were identified across both time series. Salient historical events that occurred during the changepoint periods were identified for contextualization. Conclusions Clinical documentation of gender dysphoria oscillated with changes to policies and public statements by government leaders, which may in turn, impact military recruitment and retention. This study highlights the need for equitable policies that optimize the strength of a diverse military force. Equity-oriented monitoring is needed to continually examine the impact of military service policies on readiness and retention to support actionable, data-driven improvements to policies and their implementation.

Later research showed a gene called SRY, located on the Y chromosome, “pushed” primordial germ cells in the embryo to become testes. Biological factors hold appeal and power since reference to “biology” and “science” lends any suggested trait or combination of traits the appearance of neutrality and thus objectivity. Just this year, the administration of US President Donald Trump began requiring military personnel to serve “in their biological sex”, which they define as “a person's biological status as male or female based on chromosomes, gonads, hormones, and genitals” (treating these as congruent). “The biological sex…must prevail”, thundered an official for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), in the context of a rancorous decades-long battle over sex-testing policies used to determine which women are allowed to compete in the female category.

Background The inclusion of transgender soldiers in the military service raises a fundamental question about the dichotomous categorization of human sexes based on anatomy and gender role within a specialized organization where the most masculine is commonly accepted. In March 2021, Hee-Soo Byun, the first transgender soldier in Korea to come out in public, and who was forcefully discharged after gender affirming surgery, died by suicide. With no anti-discrimination laws, the cultural background of the Korean society hardly creates an LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) — friendly environment and shows a negative attitude towards gender minorities. Methods A total of 193 online news article headlines were analyzed, and 1046 comments were categorized inductively based on the presented rationales. Results: Before Byun’s public appearance, the frequent use of provocative expressions, which could evoke prejudice and discrimination, was found in published article headlines. Of the 724 comments that presented opinions on transgender soldiers, approximately 75% opposed Byun serving in the military in any form, including as a female soldier. Conclusions This study aimed to investigate online news articles and the comments regarding Byun’s case to estimate the acceptability of transgender people serving in the military. The results of this study are expected to serve as a basis for the formulation of policies that protect the human rights of transgender people.