St. Francis was a wild kid, before he transformed from a free spending boozer with a taste for French fashions - Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone was called "Frenchie," or Francesco by his Dad and pals:
No one loved pleasure more than Francis; he had a ready wit, sang merrily, delighted in fine clothes and showy display. Handsome, gay, gallant, and courteous, he soon became the prime favourite among the young nobles of Assisi, the foremost in every feat of arms, the leader of the civil revels, the very king of frolic. But even at this time Francis showed an instinctive sympathy with the poor, and though he spent money lavishly, it still flowed in such channels as to attest a princely magnanimity of spirit.
He shed his expensive French garments some time after he got out of the army, having been a prisoner of war and a victim of fever, when he had a vision of becoming a Prince dedicated to Our Lady of Poverty, whom he said that he was 'betrothed,' went on a pilgrimage to Rome, tried to give money from goods that he stole from his father to a beggarly priest, only to have the gift refused and hid from his father's wrath in a cave, emerged from that cave after a few weeks and was hooted and howled at by his friends, family and neighbors as a madman.
Francis had transformed.
He had transformed from a vain, pampered and selfish boy into a man.
He was not the same person who went into the Army of Assisi to fight the Perugians. Francis was no longer Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, but not Frances. He was gender specific, transformed to be sure, but still the guy his mother birthed.
Today, transformation is tightly and politically defined as sexual and born of desire to be someone else - Chasity to Chaz and Bruce to Caitlyn. Drag Queens are no longer spotlight vamps belting out "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have" at the old Empire Room, they are our neighbors. That is the current meme, anyway. Personally, the only Trans-persons, I have encountered are Col. Pritzker and the coterie of prostitutes who throng at 74th and Halsted in Englewood.
Col. Pritzker helped the Leo Alumni re-Dedicated the grave site of Medal of Honor recipient John Fardy, before his gender reassignment surgery. Col. Pritzker is a highly decorated retired Army officer of the 82nd Airborne.
Of the male drag queen hookers on Halsted, one beat up the Alderman of the 17th Ward a few years back.
Yesterday, it was announced that President Trump, as commander-in-chief, reversed the executive order of President Obama, as commander-in-chief, executed June 2016 lifting all bans on transgender personnel:
“Effective immediately, transgender Americans may serve openly,” Mr. Carter announced, on June 30, 2016. “They can no longer be discharged or otherwise separated from the military just for being transgender.”
He said that the Pentagon would cover the medical costs of those in uniform who wished to undergo gender transition, and that it would begin a yearlong training program for service members on the changes.
It appears that the issue was economic and required a solid 'civil rights' coating of rainbow paint to equate sex and gender with the 'color of a man's skin.'
The administration achieved many if not all of these goals. It’s been most successful in the arena of gay and lesbian rights. Obama signed into law an expansion of the hate-crime statute to include crimes motivated by antigay bias. He ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” and, more recently, lifted the ban on transgender people serving in the military. He issued an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. He personally endorsed marriage equality in May 2012 and refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, the law signed by Bill Clinton that denied federal benefits to same-sex couples married in states that recognized such marriages, thereby easing the way for its invalidation by the Supreme Court in 2013. And when the Court took up the question of same-sex marriage directly, the Obama administration supported the claimants, and Obama’s solicitor general, Don Verrilli, delivered an impassioned argument for why the Court shouldn’t defer recognition of same-sex marriage as a constitutional right. A federal bill barring employment discrimination against LGBTQ people has not passed, but there the blame lies with Congress. (emphasis my own)The issue is and was whether a person in the military, let's say someone who accepts n appointment to a Military Academy, or enlists as a gender specific person, decides to change genders, will the government be required to pick up the costs.
According to multiple sources, the price of basic genital reassignment surgery (or genital reconstruction surgery) for a man transitioning to a woman ranges from $7,000 for a simple orchiectomy and vaginoplasty to $25,000 for orchiectomy and the more complicated colovaginoplasty. This is often, but not always, followed up by breast augmentation, which can run anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000. That’s a total average high of $35,000, but estimates for the two procedures combined have ranged from $10,000 to upwards of $50,000.
For women transitioning to men, the initial costs can be higher, and the choices more complicated. Some estimates lower-end cost of a metoidioplasty—a procedure that “frees” a hormone therapy-enlarged clitoris from the body for use as a phallus—at $2,000. That said, there are estimates of more complex metoidioplasties, as well as procedures that add testicles and involve full phalloplasties that top $100,000. Often double mastectomies, ranging in cost from $15,000 to $25,000, and sometimes hysterectomies, which run from $7,500 to $11,500, are performed.These are the low-end figures. The best guess-timate lies in the neighborhood of $130,000 per gender re-assignment. Bradley/Chelsae Manning has his/her's.
The media is dead -set against the Trump Order. It's a Trump order. Some have raised Harry S. Truman's Executive 9981 ordering the end of racial segregation ( black/Japanese) in all military units, Non-Active Duty Navy Seals living post surgical lives, tales of hard-charging Alpha Male buddies who are now soccer moms, to pump up the Resistance on this issue.
I do not believe that this is a Selma moment, again.
Francis stopped being Giovanni. Col. Pritzker was not Jennifer when he finished jump school at Fort Bragg. Bruce Jenner won the Decathalon, but Caitlynn is not getting in the blocks. Pfc.Bradley Manning sold military secrets and Chelsae got out of the stockade in May.
"Give 'Em Hell Harry," commanded an artillery battery loaded with Micks, not a Baptist's favorite gang, but learned about them,
. I have the Irish Catholic Battery but they seem to like me pretty well and I'm satisfied if I don't blow up with to many worries that I'll have a good Btty. I hope the best in the Brigade. The one that does the best work here gets to fire the first shot of the Brigade at the Hun. I shall do my very best to win the honor although I may fail to get it as there is hot competition. You've no idea the experience I'm getting. I've seen most everything and done most everything in this man's army since August 5 and now I have attained my one ambition to be a Battery Commander. If I can only make good at it I can hold my head up any way the rest of my days.
I'd give most anything to see you. I hope also that Hinde's[23] prophecy is true. But of course we can't come home until we do a thorough job over here. Please keep writing and remember I love you always.
Harry
Capt. Harry S. Truman
Bty D. 129th F.A.
Truman did what FDR was afraid to do - he ended racial segregation in the services.
President Obama did what policy wanted and floated on the breeze.
The Nobel Prize winning 44th President made traditional marriage a parlor game for semiotic totalitarians, "When I became president, same-sex marriage was legal in only two states. Today it's legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia."
What a guy!
Barry was no Harry.
James jumped at Fort Bragg and Jennifer own the biography. That is a fact. Might not be the truth, but it is a fact - today.
Put me in the Q category.
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