Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) is demanding answers from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy after the federal service academy enacted a policy allowing military service exemptions for midshipmen pursuing a gender transition.
Banks, along with seven Republican colleagues in the House Anti-Woke Caucus, sent a letter to the USMMA regarding its policy that allows “transitioning while enrolled at the academy so as to remove barriers for those with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or who identify as transgender.”
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“The Biden administration’s radical gender policies are turning our service academies into gender clinic waiting rooms for confused teenagers,” Banks, chairman of the Anti-Woke Caucus, told the Washington Examiner. “Waiving the service commitment for students who decide they want to switch genders is a dangerous precedent and insulting to all who have risked so much to serve our nation.”
The policy, which took effect on Oct. 13, treats medical gender transitions as it would other medical issues faced by midshipmen “that impact a student’s ability to matriculate, graduate and fulfill their service obligation.”
However, Banks’s letter points out that the policy actually creates a waiver for obligated service for midshipmen who start identifying as a different gender in their third or fourth years at the academy. “This creates a dangerous avenue for exploiting our nation’s prestigious service academies,” the letter states.
The academy also defines what it calls the “real life experience” phase of transition as the “phase in the gender transition process during which the student begins living socially in the gender role consistent with their self-identified gender,” which is a “necessary precursor to certain medical procedures, including gender transition surgery.”
Because of the “necessary” nature, USMMA encourages students “using [their] self-identified gender berthing, bathroom and shower facilities,” according to the policy, and therefore, as stated in the letter, allows men “who may not have even begun the medical transition process” access to women’s facilities such as showers, restrooms, and living areas, as well as the ability to compete against women in sports.
Banks said that poses safety concerns for women who may not feel comfortable being recruited to a service academy that allows men to intrude in those spaces.
The letter demands answers to questions regarding the classification of “gender dysphoria” as a “medically disqualifying condition,” about which they ask for an explanation of the classification as well as why the superintendent is responsible for reviewing waivers instead of a medical professional.
It also asks why the waivers are granted for those who want to transition but not for those who would like to detransition and “return to identifying with their biological sex.”
The policy is a response to President Joe Biden’s day one executive order on “preventing and combating discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.”
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The letter was joined by Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Mary Miller (R-IL), Harriet Hageman (R-WY), Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), Glenn Grothman (R-WI), and Matt Rosendale (R-MT).
The Washington Examiner contacted the USMMA for comment.
