The Transgender Military Experience

Although there have been studies that focus on the experiences ofthe gay and lesbian population serving in the United States military, few have focusedon the experience of active duty transgender service members. Transgender individualstransgress the binary conception of gender by deviating from societal gender normsassociated with assigned sex at birth. The Department of Defense has set policies andstandards that reflect a binary conception of gender, with a focus on conformity. Weargue that able-bodied gender variant service personnel are just as capable of servingtheir country as anyone else. Because of the repercussions associated with active dutytransgender military personnel, our sample is small and involves nine clandestineservice members and two international service members who wanted to share their storiesfrom a different perspective. Snowball sampling was aimed at finding current active dutyand reserve transgender service members. Using a combination of telephone interviews andquestionnaires, data were collected from active duty transgender service personnelthroughout the United States and two from international militaries that allowtransgender people to serve. Data collection focused on the overall experiences of theparticipants along with questions regarding workplace discrimination, suggestions forpolicy changes, and their views about the overturn of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Ourfindings add to a growing source of information about the transgender militaryexperience in the U.S. armed forces and the importance of overturning discriminatoryworkplace policies that negatively impact transgender service members