DADT: And Then They Came For The Hermaphrodites

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA)-a vet who has his father’s old seat in the House, and who says democracy doesn’t work?-came out swinging against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. His point of view is that the military bond (ooh) is broken “if you open up to the military to transgenders, to hermaphrodites, to gays and lesbians.” Oh, so we’re against the life choice of hermaphrodites now?

In fact, intersex people aren’t welcome to serve, but no one’s quite sure how and why. There’s this interesting comment on Politico:

As an Intersex person, currently in the US Military, they are currently banned from serving on Active duty, Reserve or even the National Guard. The closest thing that an Intersex person can do is serve in the Coast Guard Auxiliary or the US Air force Civil Air patrol. The US military bans intersex people not only on the gay issue, but also the medical issue as well because the military thinks that Intersex people will be a burden to them and to the military health care system.

Which backs up the research. Let’s take a look at “Gender Identity and the Military — Transgender, Transsexual, and Intersex-identified Individuals in the U.S. Armed Forces,” published in 2007 by the Palm Center!

Similarly, intersex-identified individuals are excluded from the U.S. military as “hermaphrodites,” a term that is seen as pathologizing and pejorative by many. All U.S. military representatives we contacted indicated that intersex identified individuals are presumed to require greater medical attention than the armed forces can provide would therefore be excluded from service, although we were unable to identify any regulatory, legal or policy basis for this claim.