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Why should cosmetic interventions, whether pharmaceutical or surgical, to give an individual the appearance of secondary sex characteristics of the opposite sex, be something the military should have any interest in doing? It doesn't help its mission does it.

Driver's license and passport record sex, and bathrooms and other spaces that are separated for women and men are done so on the basis of sex.

Being an objective measurement of material biological state, sex isn't the same type of thing as a gender identity belief, which is indeed self-declared like a religion is.

There's a more sensible middle-ground here, in that the military should have no problem enlisting people with gender identity beliefs - just as it's fine for military personnel to hold varying religious beliefs - but that no-one else should be obliged to accept these beliefs as true, and that the military should not have to fund any cosmetic procedures to make an individual appear to be of the opposite sex. While also not discriminating against anyone for having these beliefs.

This is a sensible middle-ground approach for the rest of society too. Just treat it like a minority religious belief, then the issue is solved fairly without stepping on anyone's rights.

If both Republicans and Democrats agreed to this approach and put this issue to bed, they could get on with wrangling over much more important problems of governance.