PrintFebruary 3, 2011
'ROTC Discriminates Against Transgender People'
The above title appeared in today's Harvard Crimson over a letter from Janani Balasubramanian who is credited as being "an officer within the Stanford Students for Queer Liberation." (Within? Is that to downplay the hierarchical nature of officers and members?)
Last December, after the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, Harvard announced it will reopen its doors to ROTC, a move widely praised at Harvard. Balasubramanian writes to object to the "continued military exclusion of transgender and intersex people (though [the Crimson] actually us[ed] the disparaging term ‘transgendered')."
Balasubramanian continues: "mainstream LGB (not T) organizations have been uncritically excluding transgender politics from the public discourse on DADT."
The victim mentality on display here reads more like an Onion satire. "Transgendered" is a disparaging term? Intersex people? I don't think I want to know. Lesbian, gay and bisexuals are now "mainstream" oppressors of the "T" community? Does this mean there's a Don't Ask Don't Tell policy for the gender box on the ROTC application? Where will it all end?
