Trans Universe

The year was 1993.  Clinton was President.  Gay, lesbian and bisexual people felt they finally had a friend in the White House.  And, even though transgender people officially started the gay movement at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, they only began finding their voices in the equal rights movement in the early 1990’s.  They had very little visibility and vertically no credibility.  We weren’t on anyone’s radar.

In that year, President Clinton wanted to fulfill a promise by making the US military safe for people, regardless of their sexual orientation, but it didn’t turn out the way people wanted.  The now infamous Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law came into affect and it did not protect people in the military based on their sexual orientation, if that orientation was something other than straight.  The law gave commanders a chance to hunt down gay, lesbian and bisexual service member in order to weed them out.  Transgender military people didn’t ask to be included, but included they were.

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The Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara has released the findings of a survey, conducted by Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA), that shows that transgender veterans are being turned away and being mistreated in high numbers by Veterans Administration medical facilities.  The survey, with 827 transgender veteran participants, was conducted from December 13, 2007 to May 1, 2008.  This represents a strong sampling from what is estimated to be approximately 300,000 veterans in the US who identify as being transgender.

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Guest blogger Dr. Nathaniel Frank is Senior Research Fellow at the Palm Center at University of California, Santa Barbara, and teaches on the adjunct faculty at New York University. His scholarship and writing on gays in the military and other topics have appeared in numerous publications and he has been interviewed on major television and radio programs. His book, Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, will be published in March, 2009.

Last week, the Palm Center released a report authored by four retired flag officers that called for the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military. The report marked the first time that a flag officer in all four service branches thoroughly analyzed the current policy and recommended ending the ban on open service by gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

Following its release, Dixon Osburn, co-founder and former executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), wrote a critique of the Palm Center report at The Bilerico Project.

Osburn, who left SLDN last year, is considered by many to be a true hero for his tireless efforts on behalf of service members who have been adversely affected by the rules governing gay service, and the Palm Center hopes that Osburn will continue to play a valuable role in the national conversation about “don’t ask, don’t tell” as he has for so many years.

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