Photographs by ( clockwise) Pax Ahisma Gethen, Gage Skidmore and Jere Keys under Creative Commons licensing . 

 First, let me apologize for the title. Not because it might have offended you ( I don’t care if it did ), but because it is just so unoriginal. That said, those of you that have followed my work know my one Achilles heel is titles. That said, let’s just dive right into this big ol’ fat transgender personnel in the military topic.

 Second, you do not have a RIGHT to be in the military (and thank the Lord for that ). You have a right to see if you are qualified to be in the military. You have a right to support the military. You even have the right to NOT support the military ( but do not be surprised if the majority of us in American society all but shun you for it ). All this (and more ) are part of your RIGHTS.

 Joining the military is just simply not one of them.

 While egalitarians will surely shower me in hate the simple fact is the military can NOT be equal. No institution can be, but that is a broader subject for another article.

 Think for a second, if every person who dreams of becoming the next Patton or Eisenhower was simply allowed into our armed forces. Every boy who lost his legs as a kid who dreamed of roaring into battle to fight the enemy. Every child who has always been “a little thick” who grew up reading Captain America comics and fantasizing about the day that he would also fight for the little guy . To put it bluntly, imagine if we had a national defense mechanism riddled with people who were obese, crippled or had something else going against them (physically speaking). That does nothing for those of us here at home and certainly not for our boys and girls on the ground in hostile territory. The same can be said for those with a mental disorder. 

 And to be clear , I am NOT saying transgender people are mentally ill. The jury is still out on that one and will be for sometime . Many medical centers actually test you for mental illness before they will agree to sex-reassignment surgery . This is good in my humble opinion. If anything, it will help legitimize transgender people in years to come (or at least legitimize them to most).

 But there are certainly more then enough people in the transgender community that DO suffer from some sort of mental disorder and the suicide rates that we see in their community is a clear indicator of that. 

 So where does THIS libertarian stand? 

 Simply put, the government should never BAN any particular class of people from service. Bring up obese people all you want but if they passed the medical evaluation and the physical training then they would DEFINITELY be allowed to serve. The simple truth is most simply CAN’T pass those tests.

 The same cannot be said for those in the transgender community. 

 Whether or not this is a mental illness or yet another difference in human sexual identity is not for this writer to comment on. Other men with far bigger brains then mine will debate that for years to come. But we know the brain chemistry of the transgender individual is MUCH different then you or I . That is not something you can get rid of like a flabby gut .

 Ideally , we wouldn’t even have any army . We would have the standing militia that the founding fathers envisioned . But in an ideal world I am also a rich and famous writer who is married to Megan Fox and sporting the body of a Greek deity.

 So in closing, I guess I look at this the same way I look at marriage. I don’t want the government involved in it at all but if the government INSISTS on being involved, I am going to insist that involvement be equal (no, that is not the same as being an egalitarian ).