There is no one path for a person coming to grips with being trans in the military. There are many possibilities that need to be considered. If you are trans and unsure how to handle a situation, please contact the SLDN. It is what they are there for. Because there are potentially serious legal ramifications of transitioning while in the military, I strongly encourage people to contact SLDN as early in the process as possible to get legal advice and to make informed decisions.

I think I’m trans and I want to get help. What do I do now?

By the time most service members contact the SLDN, they are already getting help. They are a few general options at the outset.

You can seek help through military psychological or medical services. This is a risky path in a number of ways. First, most military psychological service providers have little if any experience with transgender or gender dysphoria issues. They are also free to report that you are gender dysphoric to your chain of command. What you say to a military therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist is not HIPAA protected, and by regulation they have to report anything that affects your ability to serve. This requirement is very vague, and even more so now that the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-V recognizes that Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is not a mental disorder, and does not necessarily affect an individual’s capacity to function on a daily basis. While military regulations may reference GID or transsexualism, the fact that the new DSM-V lists gender dysphoria as a diagnosis will allow current policies to remain in place

All in all, seeking help through military services is very much a “your mileage may vary” situation.

Going to a therapist or a doctor out in town and doing it out of pocket is common for trans service members. This option is not without risk. It constitutes a violation of UCMJ Article 92, failure obey an order or regulation. David McKean notes that while this option is possible, he has not personally dealt with a case where the military has pursued Article 92 charges against a trans servicemember for getting help out in town. However, he notes, the further you go down the road of transition before you notify your chain of command, the greater the risk of legal or non-judicial action.

It should be noted that “top” surgery for FTMs is not a medically disqualifying procedure, though, while any kind of “bottom” surgery for MTFs or FTMs is.

Another option is going directly to your chain of command and telling them. Frequently they don’t want to deal with this, or the hassle. Some will insist on getting a diagnosis before beginning any kind of process. Others have been known to threaten the member with a UCMJ charge of malingering, especially if a deployment is coming up. Others will quietly ask the member how they want this handled, with an expectation and understand the service member will fulfill their contract and depart quietly. Your command may change your re-enlistment code to not eligible, but allow you to finish out your time. This option is more common when the service member is a high performer, and not showing signs of work related issues.

Most commands, however, will go straight to beginning administrative separation for medical reasons proceedings.

Why Administrative Separation and not Medical?

Transsexualism continues to be treated the same way homosexuality was, which is as a non-medical, non-waiverable, defect.

According to Paula Neira, also of the SLDN, “The law barring the VA from providing gender reassignment surgery is a cynical basis for the military’s process of administratively discharging transgender members with gender dysphoria rather than medically discharging them.”

How Will this Affect the Characterization of My Discharge?

Your characterization of service should be based on your performance, not your gender dysphoria. Receiving a general, rather than an honorable, discharge causes you to lose access to both your old and new educational benefits. A general discharge does not affect your access to VA health care after serving. If you believe the characterization of your discharge is based on your dysphoria, and not your performance, please contact the SLDN. There is an appeals process.

What About VA Health Benefits?

You must have at least 2-3 years of service to be eligible, at a minimum. The characterization of your discharge must be general or better. There are additional requirements and qualifiers, such as having served in a combat theater within the past five years.

VA benefits for trans people include counseling, labs, and access to medications such as Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). “Top” and “bottom” surgeries are not covered, nor are cosmetic procedures such as Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS).

Having, or not having, mention of dysphoria in your medical records is unlikely to affect your access to VA health benefits according to David McKean. Thus, most trans service members try not to have it in their records.

When I am ‘Out” to My Command, how can I expect them to handle it?

Most commands handle it well, even if they do decide upon an administrative separation. However, if they do mis-handle it, you have very little recourse. Mis-handling can include divulging medical records to people without a need to know or punitive actions against the service member such as being moved to the graveyard shift, duty on holidays, etc… Neither of this is against HIPAA or the UCMJ. The only recourse is the Inspector General, and the command is responsible for meting out punishment if fault is found by the IG.

Because separation for gender dysphoria is so uncommon, most commands do not know how to handle it. They usually end up consulting base legal on how to deal with the situation. The SLDN can also serve as a legal resource to commanders who want an outside opinion, or to consult with lawyers who work with the intricacies of this policy frequently.

What general advice does David McKean have for trans people after they come out to their commands?

1. As soon as you take steps towards transition or feel the need to transition, do not do it in secret. The risks associated with doing so only get worse and worse over time. Getting caught gets more and more likely, and chances of being punished keep increasing

2. Transition outside the military. This isn’t a good place to make the attempt, and others (such as college), tend to be more ideal.

3. If you are at a point of coming out to your command or medical, be prepared to be openly trans for 2-4 months. It takes 2-4 months to process an administrative separation, and it is almost guaranteed that someone who handles your records will take a look at why you are suddenly being processed out. The people looking at your records are not bound by HIPAA, and at least one of them will probably talk.

4. Expect to do your job as always until you are separated or go on terminal leave.

What advice dos David McKean have for leaders who have a trans person in their unit come out?

1. Know your options. You don’t have to go to directly to administrative separation.

2. If you do go the route of administrative separation, always put professionalism first. Treat this as any other administrative separation.

3. Move a separation along as quickly as possible to reduce the risk of harm to the trans person within your unit.

4. Although it is likely to leak, do your best to limit the information to as few people as possible who have a need to know.

For further information, the SLDN may be contacted at 1-800-538-7418, or legal@sldn.org.

Brynn Tannehill

Like everyone in the military, at some point I had to leave. Transitioning from military life to civilian is hard enough. Transitioning genders at the same time adds a degree of difficulty that even Greg Louganis would cringe at. I left active duty in 2008 after 10 years in the service. I left the reserves in 2010 as Lt. Cmdr. Bryan Tannehill. Less than two years later I was Brynn Tannehill, civilian defense contractor.  Somehow, despite all the horror stories within the trans community, I managed to stay continuously employed, stay married, and maintain most of the relationships that mattered most to me.

Some of this good fortune was due to sheer, dumb luck. The fact that I am still married and still hopelessly in love is mostly due to the resilience, intelligence, and adaptability of my spouse. Some of it is due to the work I put in to make sure I was making good decisions along the way. Good planning, and good decisions, had the most to do with why I am still employed. Since almost everyone in the military who gets out has to find a job at some point, tips on how to handle your transition at work seems to be the most generally applicable place to start. Finding a spouse who will stick around for your transition is all on you.

Here are my thoughts and advice:

Know the battlespace.

What does the corporate culture look like?  What sort of rating does the company have on the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Corporate Equality Index (CEI)? Does the company include gender identity in its corporate equal opportunity charter? What does the local office look like in terms of personality?  It is entirely possible for a company to have a 100% rating with the HRC, but be a terrible place to transition.  If local leadership is hostile towards LGBT people, it does not matter what corporate policy is, transition is going to be rough at best. Conversely, if local leadership is supportive, even if corporate level policies are not, this makes transition much easier.

Know your Rights.

Just because your company doesn’t include protections for gender identity, it doesn’t mean that local or state ordinances won’t provide them either. Even if local and state law don’t provide protections, you still have rights via the courts and case law. The EEOC and the Justice Department have both established that being treated in a discriminatory fashion for being transgender is a form of sex discrimination, which is covered by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Recent decisions such as Glenn v Brumby, Smith v City of Salem, and Schroer v Library of Congress have established via case law that discrimination based on gender expression violates both Title VII of the Civil rights Act and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Even if corporate policy and local laws do not protect you, you still have legal recourse via case law and EEOC policy.

Start saving now.
Transition is very expensive.  Most companies do not pay for SRS, and only a very small fraction pay for Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS). In a world where professional appearance may be everything, trying to transition without it may be a losing proposition if your goal is stay employed in your field. Fortunately, the military is a good place to start building your savings, especially if you deploy frequently. Tax free pay, combat pay, hazardous duty pay, and living in the field (or on the ship) all allow you to maximize income, and keep spending to a minimum if you are careful. My transition was basically paid for by a one year unaccompanied tour in the sand box during which I spent almost nothing, and lived on free food to the maximum extent practical.

So skip buying that new Mustang GT you wanted when you get back from deployment, and sock it away for future transition related expenses. You will need it given FFS and reassignment surgery can run upwards of $50,000, and other transition related items can add tens of thousands more. Additionally, the horror stories about trans people going broke happens to those who haven’t maintained some sort of financial cushion.

Make sure the right people control your clearance.

This one comes from personal experience. If at any point you change your name, and you are still in a position where you need a clearance, you will need to have that name change reflected in JPAS. When you leave the military, make sure that your security officer, or base security, releases control of your clearance so your new employer can pick it up. Only the controlling authority can make the name change. If the POC contact information listed in JPAS is outdated, and you have long since moved on to the civilian side, getting your name changed in JPAS can be several months worth of hassle. Worse, if you apply for a job in your new name they might not be able to verify you have clearance.

Have a plan:

At some point, you almost certainly have to come out to your employer. Hopefully, by the time you do you will have evaluated the battlespace, and gotten familiar with your rights, be they corporate, local, state, or case law based. When you do go to your employer about your intent to transition, work through HR. When you tell your HR representative that you have been diagnosed with GID, this is HIPAA protected information, and giving this information to anyone else requires your authorization. When you bring leadership in the company into the loop, do what you did in the military. When bringing your superior information about a problem, be ready to tell them exactly how you propose to address the issue. This can be timelines, training materials, suggestions on who else in the company they can contact for further information who has dealt with a similar situation, and ideas about how the transition should be handled with regards to the work environment.

When I came out to the VP in charge of our office (former Air Force E-9), I had all of these things in writing, in a very nice looking packet. He appreciated it, and that professionalism set the tone for the rest of the transition work done at my company.

Planning is everything.  The plan is nothing.

General Dwight Eisenhower said this almost 70 years ago, and it is still very true. No matter how well your plan for transition is, circumstances change. I had everything set up with my company to transition over a 14 month period. This included training schedules, surgery dates, meetings with HRC people to develop training materials, checklists, GANTT charts, you name it. They worked great right up until the Air Force cancelled the Global Hawk program. I lost all my research funding, and most of my team was being laid off. Suddenly, I had to use the planning and knowledge to cram my transition into 3 months of job hunting, surgery, name changes, legal document changes, covering my butt legally as I came out to a new potential employer, and a million other details.

The moral of the story was that because I had been so meticulous in laying the groundwork beforehand, when everything started to fall apart that knowledge and groundwork gave me the flexibility to accelerate everything by a factor of five.

It’s not as bad as you think:

Colin Powell wrote this as one of his “rules”.  I kept his list of rules on my desk for years, and it wasn’t until I had finished transitioning that I realized he was right. Almost nothing about transition had been as bad as I expected. Not at home, not on the job, not in terms of legal protections, nor in terms of how many relationships I lost.

I didn’t tell my (then) supervisor about being transgender until after I left the company. He was a retired Air Force Colonel, and I knew him to be a very conservative and religious person. I honestly expected a very negative reaction from him based on a host of profiling factors. After I left one employer as Bryan, and quietly started at another as Brynn, I finally told him what was going on in my life. His response surprised me.

“I don’t give a ****.  You’re my friend. I’m just glad I don’t have to sit through another one of those hour long, guess-who’s-coming-out-now, diversity meetings. When you’re recovered from surgery, let’s have lunch.”

* Read Brynn’s Frequently Asked Questions regarding transgender.

By Charlie Vest

Soldiers, military families, children from schools, civil service employees, contract personnel and citizens from the communities surrounding Fort Knox, Ky., set an unofficial world record Nov. 6, 2011, with the largest Yellow Ribbon formation made up of 2,216 people on Fort Knox.

As I prepare to redeploy, I’m already planning my return to the States after a long year away from loved ones at home. These plans include attending a Yellow Ribbon event with my fiancé, Rob. For those on active duty who have never attended such events or have never even heard about the program, the Yellow Ribbon event is a reintegration and welcome home program for Reservists and Guardsmen of all services.

The Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program promotes the well-being of National Guard and Reserve members and their families and communities by connecting them with resources throughout the deployment cycle.

“Through the Department’s Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program, we are striving to ensure that Guardsmen, their families, and their employers are properly prepared for their deployments, and that they have access to services, referrals, and proactive outreach throughout the mobilization cycle,” said Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta to the National Guard’s 2011 Joint Senior Leader’s Conference.

These events are mandatory for returning soldiers, and each soldier is encouraged to bring his or her spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend along. In the past, LGBT soldiers participated in these events either alone or in the company of a friend of the opposite sex as their “date.” Thanks to the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), all soldiers are now welcome to attend with their significant other, regardless of gender or marital status.

The services conducted nearly 2,200 Yellow Ribbon events across the country to 310,000 service members and their families in 2011. Activities at each event include job fairs, transition and warrior support, psychological health resources, family support programs, youth services and activities, suicide prevention, and marriage workshops, among other things.

The Yellow Ribbon event will also be a coming-out event for me to my fellow soldiers in my home unit who will also be attending. Understandably, I am a little nervous and very anxious about this. I haven’t actively hidden the fact that I am gay from my battle buddies, nor have I ever confirmed it with the vast majority of them. How will they react? Will they treat me differently than they have in the past? How will they treat my fiancé? Will it be an enjoyable weekend or a weekend of discomfort and damaged friendships, or worse, damaged work relationships? I am certainly not the first soldier faced with such a situation, and I will not be the last. I’ve made the decision to attend with my fiancé because he is a very important part of my life. I am no longer living in fear that my career will be ruined should someone find out that the person I love and want to spend my life with happens to be the same gender as I.

I also want to include my fiancé, who has never served, in my military life to help give him a better understanding of the close relationships that soldiers build with each other, as well as the sacrifices that we all endure, especially while deployed. He will finally have the opportunity to share his experiences with other military spouses. He will be able to discuss how my deployment affected his life, as well as hear the stories from others of how they dealt with the separation and difficulties inherent with being the loved one of a service member. Needless to say, he was never able to enjoy the benefits of being an active part of the unit’s family support group prior to DADT repeal. Hopefully, this inclusion will help him feel more included in my military life and my unit.

Change isn’t always easy, nor does it come without the efforts of brave and strong-willed people who have had enough of the status quo and are seeking to make things better. I’ve never been someone who had what I considered to be an activist mindset, willing to stand up for their ideas and beliefs at the expense of their own careers or even their own safety.  However, I’ve finally realized that without such people, change cannot happen. Each and every one of us has the power to change people’s minds about LGBT service members, and as more and more of us come out to our fellow soldiers, we will continue to erase stereotypes and erode the centuries of bigotry that has existed in our military. For those of you who are already out to your military coworkers, I commend you on your courage and for paving the way for the rest of us. For those who are still in the closet, I challenge you to take that step forward, to never look back, and to be comfortable being yourself both in public and in private. Your loved ones deserve it.

For more information on the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program, visit www.yellowribbon.mil.

Now that some have been given official permission to wear their uniform in Pride Parades, here is the latest SLDN and OutServe guidance, as of July 20, 2012, for uniform wear in relation to the San Diego Pride Parade:

http://www.sldn.org/blog/archives/sldn-issues-uniform-guidance-for-san-diego-pride-parade/

Previous Guidance

Compiled by OutServe’s Actively Serving Leadership Council

As we move into pride season, many have questions about wearing uniforms or participating in color guards at local events.  OutServe also gets frequent questions about wear of uniforms at events like the Human Right’s Campaign or Servicemembers Legal Defense Network annual dinners.

The DoD political activities and ethics rules are complicated, and there is no easy answer.  Each event is different, and the rules change depending on what role you play.  The OutServe Actively Serving Leadership team has been working to develop some recommendations and guidelines to help our members determine what is appropriate. 

The guidelines basically fall into three core rules that are really pretty simple and fall into the category of basic good military judgment:

• Military members should avoid partisan politics.
• Military members should never give the impression that a military service is endorsing a particular organization, viewpoint, or cause.
• We should always show pride in our service, wear our uniforms correctly, observe proper customs and courtesies, and never put ourselves in a position to bring shame on the military.

There is a time and a place for everything, and this year is probably not the time to make waves.  Most pride parades today are much more similar in nature to St. Patrick’s Day or Columbus Day parades than they are to political rallies and marches. Military participation should be judged according to that standard – and military members march at these events all the time.  On the other hand, the issue of open LGBT military service is still viewed by many as a political hot potato and marching in uniform could be viewed as an act of protest. OutServe’s recommendation: This is not the year to take that step. Let’s wait a year, demonstrate our professionalism as we march in civilian clothes, and next year, having proven ourselves, we can work with the Department and gain formal approval to proudly march together as a uniformed contingent for Pride.

Our recommendations are linked here. There are many applicable regulations, and the information is very detailed. We reference the DoD rules, but the document is neither all-encompassing, nor the definitive answer.  If you have questions about a particular issue or event, please consult your local staff judge advocate or SLDN for advice.

We look forward to hearing your opinions and discussion on these complicated issues.  Contact us at asl@outserve.org or post your comments to the thread on our FaceBook page.

I started a new job Monday. Yay! But don’t all cheer at once. During my death by PowerPoint inprocessing, I took particular note of the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) briefing.

I am a Reservist, so this new job is a civilian government service job under the Department of the Army. I knew there was no addition of the words ‘sexual orientation’ to the military equal opportunity’s (MEO) definition of protected employment for those in uniform once “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was abolished. Baby Steps. But I had no idea that our civilian counterparts’ employment was also not overtly protected based on sexual orientation.

Race, gender… even a relatively new law from 2008 preventing bias based on genetic disposition were all covered. Sexual orientation was glaringly missing.

Googling, I found a vague reference in the Army’s Corp of Engineer’s EEO handbook to sexual orientation being among the various diversities that can exist within a workplace, but it wasn’t referenced anywhere else within the document. Or really on the web from any other Army website I visited.

I also looked up facts of discrimination based on sexual orientation on the Employment Equal Opportunity Commission web page. It states, “The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) does not enforce the protections that prohibit discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation.” Whahuh?

I was still pretty sure that sexual orientation is a protected category, just like race, color, religion, sex, national origin, handicap, age and status as a parent, so I went to the Office of Personnel Management’s page and looked up its published facts about addressing sexual orientation discrimination in federal civilian employment. It turns out Executive Order 13087, issued on May 28, 1998, prohibits discrimination based upon sexual orientation within Executive Branch civilian employment. The Executive Order states this policy uniformly by adding sexual orientation to the list of categories.

The president’s Executive Order overtly states, as a matter of federal policy, that a person’s sexual orientation should not be the basis for the denial of a job or a promotion.

So then, why didn’t the Army include sexual orientation in its briefing to me today?

It turns out that cabinet level agencies are responsible for updating their policy statements prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Some agencies have developed parallel EEO complaint procedures allowing employees to file EEO complaints based on sexual orientation within their agencies. And many agencies have overtly included sexual orientation in their actual statements. But not a single one of the services have done so.

After perusing Army’s EEO page to see if the Army, as a cabinet level, had updated their policy, I finally found the Secretary of the Army’s policy letter. Perhaps sexual orientation falls under ‘other impermissible basis,’ but I’d kind of like to see it spelled out explicitly. I guess they could be working on this… given the Army EEO’s message from the director, mission, vision, org chart, key personnel and strategic plans are all “under construction.” I kind of doubt they are though.

The Air Force basically says the same thing, but at least acknowledges that there may be some random executive order out there they didn’t cover in their list of race, color, etc., etc., when they say “or other executive order.” And the Navy… they don’t even allude to anything outside of the standard list that was derived from the 1960s laws.

I did note, however, some other Department of Defense agencies have overtly stated protections for their employees, such as the Department of Defense Education Activity.

Secretaries of the various Armed Forces Departments: It’s time to review your EEO statements. You have Presidential approval to add sexual orientation as a protected EEO category, and have had such approval since 1998. It should take 14 years to update your EEO statements. And while you’re at it… update your MEO ones too. I’m no JAG, but can’t that executive order cover uniformed people too? They are employees of the executive branch.