The various branches of the United States military have once again asked for a delay in beginning to accept the enlistment of new recruits who “identify” as transgender. A previous request for a two year delay was shot down, but now the new Secretary of Defense, General James “Mad Dog” Mattis will be considering a six month pause. This has the usual list of suspects in the SJW community up in arms, but the various service branches are still pleading their case. (Associated Press)

Military chiefs will seek a six-month delay before letting transgender people enlist in their services, officials said Friday.

After meetings this week, the service leaders hammered out an agreement that rejected Army and Air Force requests for a two-year wait and reflected broader concerns that a longer delay would trigger criticism on Capitol Hill, officials familiar with the talks told The Associated Press.

The new request for a delay will go to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis for a final decision, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to discuss the internal deliberations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

No word yet on how Mattis is likely to go on this one, but more time for a decision of this magnitude can only be a good thing. The military is already dealing with the fallout from the Obama administration about letting current personnel “come out” as transgender and continue serving and we have very few details as to how that’s been going. The ban on current service members was only lifted last summer and we’re only talking about a couple of thousand people currently in the military tops. It also was not openly supported by the military for a variety of reasons. You’ll recall that when Ash Carter made the announcement last June he was alone at the podium. Such major policy announcements are usually made in the company of at least the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs if not the heads of some of the military branches, but Carter stood by himself and Gen. Joseph Dunford did not attend.

In the civilian world, most of us don’t particularly care what anyone else wears or calls themselves, at least not until it gets to the point where the personal privacy of others is infringed. (Remember… you will be made to care.) The military, however, is a different world. There are considerations there which go beyond questions of which uniform you will wear or how you will cut your hair in keeping with the grooming standards. The usual issues of bathroom, locker and shower use are amplified since such facilities are generally far more limited in military camps, but that’s not the worst of it either. Will males in the army and Marines who “identify” as females be exempted from combat duty? The reverse isn’t as much of an issue because everyone still has to meet the minimum physical requirements for combat, but this is only one of many complications awaiting us if we force the military to treat the concept of gender confusion as the status quo.

One might expect to see a bit of a different direction coming from Defense under the Trump administration, but there’s no way to know for sure. The President has been largely silent on the issue and I don’t see anything on record in terms of Mattis either. Stay tuned, I guess.