Posted on 02/22/2018 11:56:40 AM PST by jazusamo
Defense Secretary James Mattis will provide President Trump with his recommendations on transgender troops sometime this week, the Pentagon confirmed Thursday.
“The secretary will provide his recommendation to the president this week regarding transgender individuals and military service, and the president will announce his decision,” chief Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White told reporters at her semi-weekly briefing Thursday.
In tweets over the summer, Trump announced his intentions to ban transgender people from serving in the military. He followed through with an August memo prohibiting the military from enlisting transgender people and from using funds to pay for gender transition-related surgery.
The memo also gave Mattis six months to determine what to do with transgender individuals currently serving in the military.
Several courts have blocked the ban from coming into force while lawsuits against it are pending.
Following the memo, Mattis convened a panel to review the issue and make recommendations on the policy. He give himself a Feb. 21 deadline to finish and advance his advice to Trump.
Asked why Wednesday’s deadline passed without action, White stressed it was a self-imposed deadline and said Mattis is taking his time due to the complexity of the issue.
“This is a complex issue, and the secretary is taking his time to consider the information he has been given,” White said. “It’s an important issue, and, again, he sees all of his decisions through the lens of lethality. And as you said, it was a self-imposed deadline.”
She also did not rule out that Mattis would buck the recommendations of the panel, saying the Defense secretary “could decide to do whatever he likes with respect to his recommendation.”
“The panel’s recommendations were just that,” she said. “The secretary considered those recommendation and his own thoughts, and he had his own conversations and now he’s prepared to provide his recommendation that’s been informed by those conversations.”
Last week, the Pentagon released a new “deploy or get out” policy that says anyone who has been nondeployable for 12 months or more will be separated. The timing of the announcement has led some observers to link the new policy to the issue of how to handle troops transitioning genders, as a policy that applies to the entire force has a better chance of passing muster in a court.
Well, is going to be “Mad Dog” or Mattis the Matron?
Failure to deploy...is this not the same as Missing a movement?
Let any other troop do this and it’s charges.
Oh but he TALKS like Patton ( clap now)
How did things work out with that little homo Bergdahl in Afghanistan?
Exactly, and trannie traitor Bradley Manning.
The fact that this is even considered an issue is so pathetic.
Needless to say, it is a unit commander's responsibility to ensure the readiness of his unit and the more non-deployable soldiers he has, the more unwanted attention he will receive. Why the DoD would want to even open the door to yet another category of potentially non-deployable personnel is beyond me, as it serves no purpose but to kneel before the altar of political correctness.
He was built up in the campaign to be like Patton. Turns out he was just another Obama General, career before country.
Knowingly recruiting the mentally deficient is dereliction of duty.
I cannot believe that any transgender soldier is mentally fit to go into combat. The US Army policy should be the same as the Marines. No matter what their MOST they should be a rifleman first and ready to step into that role on a moments notice. Out with them!
Mandatory abortions?
Most sane response i've seen so far.
Are you saying Mattis is talking about women who stay pregnant? Women with children are deployed all the time.
No, this group isn't qualified for deployment, not purposely missing movement.
A large portion of non-deployable status is composed of pregnant service members. Can’t make ‘them’ deployable.
I love the way the folks who've never led at that level in battle and won the loyalty of their men are so quick to malign the heroes who have. Remember all of you who jumped on Flynn, calling him a liar based on MSM reports? Pitiful.
25% of Trump’s first term is gone. How long should we wait? And I never jumped on Flynn, it was his lying that cost him his job, otherwise he would and should still be working for the President.
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