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Transpeople Serving In Military |
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News -
Australian News
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Written by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
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Tuesday, 21 September 2010 05:21 |
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Australia Ditches Ban On Transpeople Serving In Military. We are on our way.
The Australian Defense Force was the last government agency in that nation to fire employees for being transgender and transitioning. That has now come to an end ans Chief of the Defense Force Angus Houston revoked the policy that effectively banned transgender servicemembers. According to the LGBT servicemembers referral group DEFGLIS, the military's commanders were less than understanding and welcoming. The move comes eighteen years after the ADF repealed the ban on lesbians and gays serving in the Australian military, but the nation still trails behind Canada, Israel, Czech Republic, Spain and Thailand which support their transgender soldiers through diversity programs.
Australia is still ahead of the United States which does not allow transgender soldiers to serve and does not allow lesbians and gays to serve openly.
As the ADF works on a new policy which will come out in December, Air Chief Marshall Houston called on commanders to show more understanding and said that the move signaled an instruction to commanders to "manage ADF transgender personnel with fairness, respect and dignity . and existing medical review provisions; and ensure all personnel are not subjects to unacceptable behavior".
The ADF began medical discharges for servicemembers in 1980, along with much of the world, after "gender identity disorder" was included in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Medical Disorders or DSM III. The DSM V has been mired in controversy over whether or not to include GID as a disorder given the number of transpeople who do not feel that this is a disorder. There is even some medical evidence that GID may be a form of intersexuality.
According to the US-based Palm Center, which specializes in LGBT military matters, most of the military has erroneous beliefs about transgender and intersex medical requirements, and that most were myths. The found that the medical requirements of transgender and intersex individuals posed no barriers to effective service.
Australia, like many countries, still has rampant discrimination against transgender and intersex individuals. While they cannot be fired from government jobs, they can still be fired from jobs based on gender status. The Gillard government has promised to address the issue when it consolidates all of the existing anti-discrimination laws.
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