Can transgender people join the U.S. military? So far what I've read the answer is no; I don't want to join the military but the draft still scares me. There's some crazy stuff going on in the middle east and if things do end up moving forward the U.S. will be drawn into it along with other big countries. I know it's a bad thing that the transgender aren't allowed still but I can't handle being drafted. Everything about war scares me and I can't do it. Will they reject me for the draft (if it so happens) due to being a transsexual?
You can, but only if you don't transition while you're in the military. When you enlist, you are considered property of the military. If you start HRT while in the military, you will be fined for destroying military property. At least, that's what one of my MTF friends who was in the military told me.
I don't know about transgender in the military, but I used to be freaked out about the prospect of the draft. My answer used to be that I would just tell them I was gay, but that's out now. I've since read that reinstating the draft is considering political suicide, because its such an unpopular idea. Doesn't mean it won't happen, but I think it rings true. So many people would be really, really angry if they started drafting people.
They are not going to be drafting people any time soon in the United States. For one thing, I think it would be almost impossible now to instate a draft that did not include women, but at the same time I think it would be politically impossible to draft women. The only exception I can imagine is if we were facing invasion and being attacked on our own soil. But if that were the case, I think we would have a huge volunteer army anyway. That said, I think you could potentially be excluded on psychological grounds. Even if being transgender in itself is not considered to exclude you, secondary conditions caused by living as a transgender person in an unaccepting society could make you too psychologically unstable for military service (too much of a suicide risk, for example). It probably wouldn't be too difficult to find a mental health professional to give you the necessary diagnosis; transgender people ARE a higher suicide risk, and forcing them into military service could in some cases easily put them over the edge. (Not in all cases, obviously, and I'm not saying that transgender people who WANT to serve should be barred from doing so.)
