Who should be held most accountable?

[Julie Marie]

Scenario #1:
A man joins the Marines. He later gets married. Of course, the wife knows he's in the military. Both know he could be sent out into battle while serving. They then have three children.

The man is sent to war and returns a paraplegic. The wife is left to take care of the kids, him and earn a living for the five of them.

Scenario #2:
A man has gender identity issues. He tells the girl he's dating. They later get married and have three kids.

After many years battling his gender dysphoria, the man reaches a point where he can no longer live as a man. We tells his wife and kids and keeps them involved throughout the transition. The wife chooses to divorce and the kids end up living with her.

In each case the family has been impacted by the actions of the father. In the first case the man made the choice to join the Marines. He wasn't born a Marine, he just wanted to be one. In the second the man was born TG and did his best to battle it off but realized the fight was harming him and possibly his family.

I know what the mainstream would say because they are programmed to love the soldier and hate the trans person. But if you strip away prejudices and social conditioning, which scenario truly caused the family most harm and who made the choices that impacted the family the most?

This is not a test and you will not be graded for your answer. 

Julie

[myles]

Another point is that they will say joining the military is honorable and unselfish as you are laying it all on the line for your country and for everyone's freedom. While transitioning is selfish and is done to help no one but yourself.
I do not agree with this just a point regarding the different situations I think would be made by the "general public".
Myles

[Kara]

My *opinion* is that anyone who joins the military (as an enlisted member no less) is pretty damned stupid. The military is little more than a political tool for use in foreign policy schemes today. Nor are they tolerant of a lot of things. They are not understanding, it's always mission, mission, mission.....people are apparently of no account because the traditional military mindset was always that more soldiers can be added on. Today, however, I feel that they are behind the times in that they don't view each soldier as irreplaceable. Instead, it's all about the weapons and toys. While the military person is clearly the victim in this case, I would say he wasn't smart enough to know what he was getting into and I find myself having trouble sympathizing with what happened. However, that's just how I think.

I would not hold a transgendered person accountable for any "damage" in the family that results from their transition. It is hard even to call it that. The experience for the children may be one of enrichment rather than estrangement.

[DarkLady]

Senate accepped Lieberman amendment that would increase size of the ''active duty personel'' making draft very likely in the future. Only Feingold D-WI voted against.

[tekla]

Not going to happen.  Political death for the people who go for it, far too many issues, no big war, and the military does not want it.

[NicholeW.]

But if you strip away prejudices and social conditioning, which scenario truly caused the family most harm and who made the choices that impacted the family the most?

O, maybe I'm just this way, but truth to tell I have difficulty, so much in fact that I find no way to do so, making that sorta call, about most things.

People make decisions. And reap whatever comes from those. Are those who are their families without anything but some sort of victimhood in their lives?

Not imo. They make decisions as well, and even if they "had no choice" in one of these two instances they had choices throughout and around those decisions.

Finally, we all decide to or not live every moment of our lives. Pretty much everything is a decision and the results, or what we see as the results, of those decisions are pretty much their own consequences.

Paraplegia came to the soldier and his family suffered.

But as easily he might have become some sort of war-hero (say he's saved his company from being massacred single-handedly instead), returned states-side and entered politics or a defense industry. He rose in political office, eventually became president based on his heroism and acclaim, served two terms and made tons of money before and after writing (or had having ghost-written) books and doing speaking-engagements.

His children and wife all had more money and notoriety than they had ever dreamed of and all lived happily ever-after.

The TS fought the good fight to not transition and then did. Her family moved out. She wrote a book about her experiences. She became a spokeswoman for TG-rights at HRC, parlayed that into fame and fortune herself and was elected president to follow the soldier after his two terms were complete. (Somewhere along the line her children came to live with her and the love of her life also returned after the book was written, having decided that perhaps their love conquered all of her fear and the thought she'd be viewed as a lesbian.   

Four scenarios each as plausible as another -- although perhaps the trans-audience here will disagree. But there's a lot that's possible in the world.

Who's "at fault" for any of it?

People have lives and we make decisions about whether we can live with this or that and then make more decisions about what to do afterwards, during, around and about, etc.

Who's at fault? Life? Circumstances? The individuals? Other individuals? God? The Universe?

Take your pick, I cannot see that it matters who we choose or do not. We live lives and by their existence the choices we make are uncertain to us. If we do whatever we think leads to us "doing well" then we say we made good choices. If not then we want to say we are "at fault."

Most of our choices appear to have their own consequences: other lives that intersect our own and the decisions those people make. 

This is not a test and you will not be graded for your answer. 

Thank goodness for that, J.

[Nero]

awesome post, Nikki!

[NicholeW.]

Why, thank you, Nero!

[FairyGirl]

yes awesome post!! (can I get a hug too?)

The husband is ultimately responsible for both scenarios, though he may have felt he had more choice in being a soldier than in being transgendered, which does seem to fall down out of the sky occasionally and bite some of us squarely on the ass whether we like it or not.

But he made the choice to be a soldier, or he made the choice to transition. He also made the choice in the first place to get married and to have kids, as involuntary as that may seem to some people. The only ones left here without a clear choice seem to be the kids, who always seem to get the short end of the parents' bad decisions.

[gennee]

I was drafted in the army in 1971 but decided to enlist. The Vietnam War was raging and there was a 50-50 chance that could have been sent there. (I wasn't). Decided to join because it was the right thing to do.

I didn't know that I was TG until 4 years ago. I could have gone into denial but chose to embrace my ->-bleeped-<-. I was able later to come out to my wife and son.

There are always consequences with the decisions we make. Maybe others don't understand but no one can live our lives. These were two of the best decisions I ever made. I am a part of a unique group of people in both cases.

Gennee

[NicholeW.]

yes awesome post!! (can I get a hug too?)

Thank you too, gf. and yes.

[Hannah]

My *opinion* is that anyone who joins the military (as an enlisted member no less) is pretty damned stupid.

Easy there sweety, I'm a Marine and I know I'm not the only one in these parts. You have the right to say such things, in English, in no small part because of stupid people like me.

Nobody made me join the Marine Corps though. Everybody has their own motivation for doing such a thing, but at the end of the day it was a choice. Both having children and enlisting are choices, and in terms of enlisting the accountability rests on the shoulders of the Marine, in terms of the kids having a tough life it's shared between the leatherneck and the spouse they procreated with, both knew the risks.

Serving in the military is more socially acceptable than being trans, and that's nothing new. I'm not sure anyone should really be called to accountability in the trans scenario, because it's an evolving situation for a lot of people, with different levels of action or inaction being acceptable by different people at different times.

[DarkLady]

Not going to happen.  Political death for the people who go for it, far too many issues, no big war, and the military does not want it.

In case both parties agree it will not be a political suicide. Then it is up to President Obama to decide. Afganistan war, Iran, North Korea.. . Very well reasons for reinstitute the draft. And I am quit sure that Defense secretery Gates wants it.

[Mister]

You have the right to say such things, in English, in no small part because of stupid people like me.

i'm pretty sure there were no marines writing the constitution. 

[tekla]

The Constitution is only as powerful as the democracy it supports and the military might that backs that democracy up.

The old adage is that you and I sleep soundly in our beds and are free to go about our lives because rough men and women stand read to do great violence on our behalf.  (That's both the military and the police.  Think Oakland's unsafe now, take the cops out and in 12 hours - or less - it will be an apocalyptic wasteland a la Mad Max.)

The comparison though is apples and oranges.  The vet did service out of a calling greater than self it's assumed.  Duty, honor, country is believed by many and provides a different set of motivations.  Moreover the vet is going to get health care (though not near good enough) and payment (though not enough) for those injuries, while the TS on TV the other night spend her families retirement money to do it.  Whole different set of circumstances.

Oh yes, and vets, particularity wounded vets have preferential treatment in hiring, while TS have pretty much the exact opposite.

As Becca will tell you, no one just 'wants to be a Marine' and then 'poof' they are a Marine.  The Corps has the highest reject rate of the services, as they always seem to have more people who want to be Marines then they have slots available, so the wash out rate is very high. If they have the slightest doubt, you're gone.

And in the example cited, the wife of the Marine knows this is a possibility, the wife of the TS is often blindsided by it.

[Julie Marie]

Well, here's where I was going with this...

The soldier would be hailed as a hero even though his family could well suffer much more than the TG's family. But our social conditioning has told us being a soldier and fighting for your country is noble and honorable, no matter what the price you or your loved ones pay. There is no honor in being TG, only shame.

Neither person should be faulted. Both fought bravely and both paid a price for not coming out victorious/unscathed. The problem lies not in the actions of the two men but in the social perception of who they are and what they did. Time and again we hear people say to the transitioning TG, "Think about your family!" I've never heard anyone say that to the man who goes to enlist. (Maybe it happens but I know I haven't heard it.)

There's no doubt we hold masculinity highly. Men protect us. Men provide for us. Men are tough and strong and are there for us. But if you are perceived as a man and you give up that gender role you are branded a coward, a quitter and a whimp.

I do not believe in war. I do not believe in killing a stranger because my country wants me to. I do not believe might makes right. You can live in peace without constantly "protecting it". Look at Switzerland and other countries that are never involved in war. So the concept of enlisting in order to fight for my country is not something I subscribe to.

In my eyes the soldier was far more responsible for causing his family hardship than the TG. But in both cases the wife also held some responsibility for the hardship caused to the children. They each knew they were entering into a risky situation and went ahead and started a family anyway. But the soldier's family was in a far riskier situation as he could be maimed or even killed yet society just won't go there. The TG however will be readily blamed for what he/she "did to the family".

Now the intent is not to point the finger of blame, only to point out the lopsidedness of accountability created by a poorly conditioned society.

Julie

[tekla]

But our social conditioning has told us being a soldier and fighting for your country is noble and honorable, no matter what the price you or your loved ones pay.

This is social conditioning that goes back as far as civilization does.  Granted it's been disputed, particularly in contexts like WWI or Vietnam where the nation's best interests were perhaps not being served.  However in cases like WWII, I'd be hard pressed to say that the liberation of nations under fascist occupation, and the liberation of the death camps were not heroic.  Sure seemed heroic to the people of France and the inmates at Dachau at the time, and those soldiers were greeted and hailed - properly I think - as heroes.

Though its incorrect to view being TS as shameful, its not exactly heroic either, unless your going to radially change the definition of the world heroic which is someone who is presumed to risk their own life for the sake of another. 

Doing something for yourself, might be brave, but it lacks the fundamental quality of hero.

And people are often torn between military service and family obligations, and several categories of exemption are granted on that basis.

But to take the classic extreme (yet oddly common) example of a person who would throw their body on a grenade to save the lives of the others around him is a very different deal than someone who would do something for themselves.  On act is viewed as selfless (heroic, and Medal of Honor stuff) the other is viewed as selfish, doing it just for themselves.  Nothing wrong in that, but the comparison does not work.

While I would support the second, I would honor the first.

Look at Switzerland and other countries that are never involved in war.
No, but it never stopped them from making money from it.  And, by the way, the Swiss have a Militia that is very powerful, extremely well funded, and highly trained.  They have a state of the art air force and even thought they lack a navy, they do have patrol boats on the major lakes.   They live in peace, but they are constantly protecting it for sure.

[Mina_Frostfall]

Whenever I hear someone say that they are going to join the military, what I hear in my head is "I want to be a mercenary". Honestly, I don't think there is a great deal of difference. Of course one has different convictions, but the reality is really the same. Pointing out that soldiers protect a nations sovereignty doesn't say much since it can also apply to a mercenary force. Of course mercenary armies haven't seen the same use in the 20th century then in previous eras, and there are practical reasons why a state army is preferable (just read The Prince), but that's beside the point. There is little difference between the modern armed forces of the United States and the armies of nations past. The army serves to will of the ruling class of the republic and any benefit to those below is incidental. The ideal culture of the United States says otherwise the real culture functions otherwise, just like anywhere else.

[Hannah]

Whenever I hear someone say that they are going to join the military, what I hear in my head is "I want to be a mercenary"

Actually, I enlisted to try and fix myself. That didn't work out but at least it's paying for a Masters degree. 

If this topic is of interest to you, read a piece called "Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012". It isn't that long and it's quite fascinating. Of course we want the military to be 'mercanaries', if I understand your usage of the term. We don't want them to be peacekeepers, aid workers, and so on, (nor do they want to be) and that piece details exactly why.

[Mina_Frostfall]

Actually, I enlisted to try and fix myself. That didn't work out but at least it's paying for a Masters degree. 

If this topic is of interest to you, read a piece called "Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012". It isn't that long and it's quite fascinating. Of course we want the military to be 'mercanaries', if I understand your usage of the term. We don't want them to be peacekeepers, aid workers, and so on, (nor do they want to be) and that piece details exactly why.

That's interesting. Thanks.