Text of TX HCR 156 (2019)

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.