Barriers to serve: Social policy and the transgendered military

Abstract

Militaries around the world have recently reassessed their policies concerning transgender personnel. A wave of integration has swept across the English-speaking world, with transgender troops serving openly in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Currently, the United States Department of Defense is embarking on its own reassessment. We offer here overlapping perspectives on the future directions of transgender policies in the American military. First, we provide an overview of the transgender policies of other English-speaking democratic militaries. We then discuss survey findings that provide insights into current transgender military populations. Finally, we focus on a key policy (DD Form 214/215, which regulates name changes) and discuss its effects on transgender personnel. Given the global trend-lines and considering the lived experiences of American transgender personnel, we argue that American policy-makers should take care to avoid the conservative biases of the organization when formulating its future transgender policy.