{"id":36958,"date":"2016-10-03T00:30:49","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T03:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/?p=36958"},"modified":"2016-10-25T08:13:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T11:13:59","slug":"teenager-becomes-newest-face-of-military-transgender-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/03\/teenager-becomes-newest-face-of-military-transgender-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenager Becomes Newest Face of Military Transgender Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-36959\" src=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/brewer2.jpg\" alt=\"brewer2\" width=\"880\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/brewer2.jpg 880w, https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/brewer2-300x95.jpg 300w, https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/brewer2-768x244.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px\" \/>The Associated Press <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/news\/us\/hope-relief-for-transgender-military-families-in-new-policy-1.432077\">published an unusually revealing article<\/a> [updated <a href=\"http:\/\/bigstory.ap.org\/article\/5fbf671ebdd942c3a4d2dfe9f9f81980\/hope-relief-transgender-military-families-new-policy\">link<\/a>] about a 13-year-old US Army dependent named Jenn Brewer &#8212; who is actually a male, but is attempting\u00a0a pre-puberty\u00a0&#8220;transition&#8221; to female under the military&#8217;s healthcare system:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Pentagon announced in June an end to the military&#8217;s ban on transgender service members. The ripple effect of the new health benefits extends beyond active-duty military to include roughly 7 million retirees and children of service members, like Jenn.<\/p>\n<p>The change puts support for Jenn&#8217;s mental and physical well-being during her transition within reach, but the new coverage also comes with controversy.<\/p>\n<p>The National Center for Transgender Equality says the new policy doesn&#8217;t go far enough, with a key operation &#8211; gender-reassignment surgery &#8211; covered only for active-duty personnel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The article indicates activists are already fighting <!--more-->that policy, intending to force the military healthcare system to pay for dependents and retirees who want to surgically change their gender appearance.<\/p>\n<p>There is no doubt that one of the toughest times in life for any person is adolescence &#8212; and for any current adult, the reasons should go without explanation.<\/p>\n<p>While adolescents and teenagers should be nurtured in love through these struggles, it is a disturbing implication that 13 year olds should be <strong>allowed<\/strong> or even <strong>encouraged<\/strong> to make <strong>permanent, physical changes to their bodies<\/strong>. Many young adults Brewer&#8217;s age will change their mind a dozen times before they even enter college regarding what they &#8220;want to be when they grow up.&#8221; Though some claim it is controversial,\u00a0those who question their gender as adolescents will likewise change their mind as they mature, potentially more than once.<\/p>\n<p>(The article also ignores the potential repercussions for\u00a0military doctors who, for moral or religious reasons, refuse to recommend a patient receive artificial medical support for a &#8220;chosen&#8221; gender.)<\/p>\n<p>Like many teenagers, Brewer is clearly going through a period of mental and emotional struggle. For example, he says he wants to identify as a woman &#8212; and he apparently has a girlfriend he met at a gay pride event.<\/p>\n<p>Further, many &#8212; if not most &#8212; teenagers will also be at least tempted to do other things that are wrong.\u00a0 Such things might include, broadly speaking,\u00a0smoking, drugs, premarital sex, underage drinking, etc. Just because a teenager <em>feels the need<\/em> to do these things does not mean they should be <em>allowed<\/em> to do these things.\u00a0 And when\u00a0parents prevent their child from doing these things, they are similarly not wrong for doing so.<\/p>\n<p>Therein lies another disturbing trend in today&#8217;s society. This article on Brewer will be met with sympathy in the least, and potentially even proactive\u00a0support for the teenager&#8217;s &#8220;choice&#8221; to identify as a different gender. If a nearly identical article had focused on parents trying to <strong>help their teenager<\/strong> work <em>through<\/em> the struggle by getting him the necessary help to correctly understand his identity as a male, the parents would almost certainly have been derided as backward bigots. Worse, in some locales their efforts may actually have been considered <strong>illegal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The only difference, though, would have been the social acceptance of neosexuality &#8212; and the social hostility toward religious beliefs that fail to conform to these new sexual norms.<\/p>\n<p>Think about the ramifications of a society that forbids you to rear a child and shape his behaviors consistent with your religious and moral standards.<\/p>\n<p>Then realize how close we are to that today.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Image via the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/news\/us\/hope-relief-for-transgender-military-families-in-new-policy-1.432077?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+starsandstripes%2Fgeneral+%28Stars+and+Stripes%29#gallery\">Jacquelyn Martin\/Associated Press<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Associated Press published an unusually revealing article [updated link] about a 13-year-old US Army dependent named Jenn Brewer &#8212; who is actually a male, but is attempting\u00a0a pre-puberty\u00a0&#8220;transition&#8221; to female under the military&#8217;s healthcare system: The Pentagon announced in June an end to the military&#8217;s ban on transgender service members. The ripple effect of the new health benefits extends [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[88,442,5808,2,10,171,5809,1278,5810,4191],"class_list":["post-36958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-army","tag-homosexual","tag-jenn-brewer","tag-military","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-teenager","tag-transgender","tag-transition","tag-tricare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}