I was never in the military, but I can only imagine the trouble it will cause in the barracks, showers, etc.
I'm glad I'm no longer in. First Sergeants, Command Sergeants Major, and commanders are going to have some serious issues to deal with having transgenders in their units.
Women are scored with lower standards to meet when taking the physical fitness test because they don't have the same body strength has men. The test is scored with points based upon points. These points are important because they are also used in part of the promotion point system for enlisted personnel. Transgender women who are in fact biological males will be scored as women and will score much higher. Transgender men who are biological women will be scored as men and will score much lower than men; most likely many of them failing the PT test; which could put them out of the military. Essentially what will most likely happen is the lowering of the standards of scoring.
Age also comes into consideration when scoring the Army PT test. I'm going to use the 17-21 age group for both men and women with how many repetitions needed for 100 and 60 points. 60 is the minimum points needed to pass an event.
Push Ups
Male - 71 = 100 points; 42 = 60 points
Female - 42 = 100 points; 19 = 60 points
Sit Ups
Male - 78 = 100 points; 53 = 60 points
Female - 78 = 100 points; 53 = 60 points
2 mile run
Male - 13 minutes = 100 points; 15:54 = 60 minutes
Female - 15:36 = 100 points; 18:54 = 60 minutes
Notice sit ups is the only event where the scoring for both genders is identical. Now imagine how easy it would be for a transgender woman to score 290-300 total points on a PT test and how difficult it would be for a transgender man to score the same amount of points. Keep in mind now that a total of 60 points in each event is needed to pass the PT test. For a Specialist (pay grade E-4), a PT score of 300 will give them 180 promotion points. A PT score of 180 gives them 40 points.
A Specialist's next promotion is to Sergeant and that's dependent upon how many vacant Sergeant slots are available in the Soldier's battalion.
Let's say there are 5 Sergeant positions available for Specialists to be promoted in, but 10 have submitted their promotion packets. A soldier can earn a maximum of 800 promotion points. You get points for military education, civilian education, weapons qualification, deployments (30 points for their deployments - two points for each month deployed, up to 15 months), and some other areas. Let's the top four candidates (two biological males and two biological females) scored as follows: the highest received 725 points and the lowest of the four scored 690. The fifth highest score was a transgender woman who scored 688 points and a biological male who scored 687. The transgender woman had a PT score of 300 points (because he was scored under the female category) and the biological male had a PT score of 275 points. The transgender woman who is a biological male would not have scored 300 points on the PT test if had been graded as a male and therefore would have had less than 688 promotion points and not promoted because he would not have scored 688 points.
There was a transgender male candidate in the 10 considered for promotion, but not selected because having to be scored as a male received a PT score of 180, which only gave 40 points towards promotion. Had she been scored as a female, her PT score would have been a hell of a lot higher giving her a lot more promotion points.
Most likely, what will eventually happen is PT tests for men and women will end up with identical scoring; meaning 40 push ups will be the same amount points regardless of gender and the two mile run will be scored likewise. There is already talk of changing the scoring system depending upon what a soldier's occupational skill is. This would mean that if you are an Infantryman or hold any other combat arms MOS, you will have to score higher on the PT test than a supply clerk would have to. This will be interesting because women are currently not allowed to serve in those military occupational skills. Will transgender men who are really biological women and transgender women who are really biological men be allowed to serve in those military occupational skills?
Sorry for this being so long, but I just wanted to give you an idea what Army leadership now has to deal with thanks to a poor decision made by the new Commander in Chief made only for political purposes and not what's best for our military.
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