86R25848 BPG-D
By: Reynolds H.C.R. No. 156
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Transgender service members have served openly in
the U.S. military since 2016, bravely defending our nation, but the
Trump administration is implementing a new de facto ban on
transgender troops; and
WHEREAS, Years of research and consideration by the Pentagon
and the secretary of defense guided the decision to officially
allow transgender people to serve in the military, and today, our
armed forces include nearly 15,000 transgender troops around the
world, in all occupational specialties; in 2018, all four service
chiefs, as well as the incoming commandant of the Coast Guard,
testified to the U.S. Congress that transgender service members do
not impair the cohesion of military units and that they had not seen
any discipline, morale, or unit readiness problems; and
WHEREAS, Previously, 56 retired generals and admirals
released a statement warning that the ban "would cause significant
disruptions, deprive the military of mission-critical talent, and
compromise the integrity of transgender troops who would be forced
to live a lie, as well as non-transgender peers who would be forced
to choose between reporting their comrades or disobeying policy";
and
WHEREAS, Six former United States surgeons general issued a
statement to "underscore that transgender troops are as medically
fit as their non-transgender peers and that there is no medically
valid reason, including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, to exclude
them from military service or to limit their access to medically
necessary care"; the American Medical Association, the American
Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric
Association have all expressed opposition to the ban, which is
based on flawed scientific and medical assertions; and
WHEREAS, A 2016 RAND study concluded that allowing
transgender people to serve would have "minimal impact" on Pentagon
readiness and health care costs and "little or no impact on unit
cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness"; and
WHEREAS, Historians relate that transgender soldiers fought
in the American Revolution and the Civil War, among them hundreds of
individuals assigned female gender at birth who enlisted and served
in the military as men; one well-known example, Union Army soldier
Albert Cashier, fought in the siege of Vicksburg and other battles
and continued to live as a transgender man after the war; and
WHEREAS, The ban on transgender troops is a policy dictated
by prejudice rather than sound, considered analysis of the needs of
our military and its personnel, and in an era when recruitment is a
challenge, it is particularly reprehensible to bar and eject
qualified individuals who want to serve our country; now,
therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 86th Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby respectfully urge the United States Congress to oppose the
transgender military ban; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.