As promised, Barack Obama’s Pentagon lifted the ban on transgender individuals openly serving. “This is the right thing to do for our people and for the force,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said. “We’re talking about talented Americans who are serving with distinction or who want the opportunity to serve. We can’t allow barriers unrelated to a person’s qualifications prevent us from recruiting and retaining those who can best accomplish the mission.” Fair enough as far as that goes, but in the military, one isn’t, in fact, an “Army of one.” Unit cohesion and effectiveness are critical in completing missions and achieving objectives, and it’s clear that the Left’s unbridled social engineering will hurt much more than help. From women serving in combat roles to this latest experiment, the one true mission for Carter and his boss is the “fundamental transformation” of our nation’s military — social engineering for a handful of people all while totally failing to deal with serious national security threats. Politics trumps everything else. Going forward, however, we fully expect the fine men and women of the American Armed Forces will make the best of this and every situation and treat their fellow service members with their God-given dignity.

Finally, a reminder from Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins Medical School: “Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men. All (including Bruce Jenner) become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they ‘identify.’ In that lies their problematic future.” Furthermore he writes, “Ten to fifteen years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to twenty times that of comparable peers.” Leftists think they’re removing the influences that cause that suicide rate, but they’re only enabling and normalizing a destructive pathology. And now they’re combining it with the stress of military service, and taxpayers will foot the bill.

(Edited.)