Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Now What?

Wednesday, August 02, 2017

Now What?

Many trans servicemembers came out with the promise of being able to serve openly, now they are in fear of being thrown out of the military.

She’s one of the Army’s first transitioned transgender soldiers — and an infantryman — but now her future is uncertain
Army Times
By: Meghann Myers
August 1, 2017

Spc. Alex Ketchum thought she’d done everything right.

The 22-year-old infantryman started her transition from man to woman in late 2015. Eight months later, former Defense Secretary Ash Carter lifted the military’s ban on transgender service, and by the following March, Ketchum had completed the steps to change her gender in the military’s personnel system.

Now, as the Army is bringing women into its first gender-integrated infantry units, she is by default one of the first women to serve in the infantry — in an all-male unit, no less.

“Wow, what are the odds?” Ketchum told Army Times in March, as she was waiting for her battalion commander’s signature to finish her transition. “I just really want to be happy.”

But the forces of evil and hate have won out…

But that could all come crashing down now, following President Trump’s July 26 announcement via Twitter that he intended to ban military service for transgender Americans.
[…]
Nothing has changed for now, but the services are prepared to follow Trump’s policy. In the meantime, congressional Democrats and the American Civil Liberties Union have vowed to fight the decision with legislation or lawsuits, if it comes to that.

DoD, if it returns to a ban on transgender service members, would have to decide whether to grandfather in those currently serving, or come up with a severance package that would include an honorable discharge, complete with education and other veterans’ benefits.

I hope for the best and hope that legal action can stop the ban.

These countries allow trans service members; Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Wednesday, August 02, 2017

Now What?

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