Transgender People in the Military: An Analytical Observation

It was the morning of 26 July 2017. What a beautiful morning I thought to myself, hardly a cloud in the sky. I licked my index finger and held it slightly above my head. It was an easterly wind, roughly 6mph. It was a calming 69 degrees that morning. I was feeling good, "why not check out and see what the Trump is thinking today" I thought to myself.... And so I did...

8:55 AM - 26 Jul 2017

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to  serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you

- Donald Trump

A picture of  Tommy Callahan Jr came to mind. "Holy Schnikes! The cis-gendered balls on this man!" Initial shock of seeing a residing US President go against the PC establishment, I was proud and elated. As a United States Air Force veteran, I felt we were finally back to having a president that actually put the troops above the politics. The military (beyond what the cronies in the pentagon say) is not a sandbox for social experimentation. However, I knew what this meant. He was going to spark a massive backlash from the progressive left and establishment right. Let the claims of transphobia begin!

It is 8 August 2017 and the backlash is still boiling. To the descent, this is not about a neutral look at whether or not this is good for the military, but rather about winning hearts and minds of a parasitic ideology (both left and right). As much as I would like to argue this is not about bias, bigotry, or any such dimwitted response to opposing viewpoints, I needed to do a deeper dive. I am a cyber security professional. I do non-biased analysis on a regular basis. Why don't I look at this like a would as a cyber security analyst.

Utilizing data from the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which includes representative state-level surveys, the Williams Institute UCLA School of Law finds that approximately 0.6% of adults in the United States, or 1.4 million individuals, identify as transgender. The United States Census Bureau claims there were about 245.3 million adults in the United States in 2014.

1.4 million adult transgender in US
245.3 million adults in the US
0.6% of US population is transgender

According to the United States Department of Defense 2010 Demographics Report, There are 2,247,995 million US adults in the US Military. This is a total of all branches and includes the 818,000 reserve. If I calculate the roughly 2.5 million US adults in the military to the US Census Data of total adults in the US (245.3 million), I see that around 0.92% of US adults currently serve in the military. If the exact same percentage (highly unlikely) of US transgender adults serve in the military as the 0.92% of adults I found, we get 20700 transgender. This is the very highest, remotely logical number of estimated transgender in the military. A UCLA study that even Snopes contests puts the estimate at 15,500.

There is a lot that can be wrong with the 20700 number being even remotely accurate here, but it is possible. I will try to break it down a bit a but more. It has only been since 30 June 2016 that transgender have been allowed in the military. According to PEW Research Center's 2011 Profile of the Modern Military, the average length of service for enlisted personnel is 6.7 years. The average officer in 2009 had been in the military nearly 11 years. There are 235,826 officers in the military, of about 10.5% of the military. 89.5% of the US military is enlisted, so I will use the PEW Research Center's average of 6.7 years for my calculations. 1.1 years of open transgenders military service in 16.4% of 6.7 years of the average enlistment. If we put that 1.1 years calculation into play (16.4% of 6.7), that brings our number to 4110 transgender in the US military. This still puts the unstable assumption into play that a transgender person would choose military service at the level of the national average of 0.92%.

2.25 million adults serving in US Military
0.92% of US adults serve in the US military
0.92% of 1.4 million transgender is 20700
16.4% of 20700 is 3395 transgender in the US military

To get a little more accurate, I looked at the data from the US Coast Guard. The CSIS ( Center for Strategic and International Studies) has stated there are 13 known transgender in the US Coast Guard. I will give two figures: one using the 13 known and the second doubling that to fill in for those that have not come out.

49000 adults in US Coast Guard
13 is 0.026% of 49000
0.026% of 2.2 million is 572
26 is 0.052% of 49000
0.052% of 2.2 million 1144
The average of these is 858

858 is my rough estimate for transgender in the US Military.