The War on Guns

Received via email:

Hey David,

I recently heard your spot on AAR regarding selective service requirements for transgender people, and I just wanted to give you my experience, hopefully it’ll make some sense.

I’m a proud American, a gun owner, and I vote for Republicans relatively often. However, I happen to also be a transgender American. I don’t want to go into deep detail about how I came to realize this, but I’ll put it this way – I fought it for a long time, and I desperately wanted to just be “normal”. However, after seeing many therapists, I have completed my
social and medical transition from female to male. This involved many therapists and psychiatrists, hormone therapy, and surgical intervention.

After these steps were completed, I changed my legal sex with the government. At that time, I was required to register with selective service. The requirement is based on your legal sex, which is very difficult to change (for good reason, every blue haired liberal won’t go through all the doctors I did without getting a good sense of whether they’re really transgender or just going through a phase). People who are born male, if they have not legally transitioned by 18, are required to register, as are any adult in the age range who legally transitions from female to male.

It’s worth noting that if a draft ever came, I’d be happy to serve my country, and I have a draft card just like every other man my age.

I hope any of that makes sense. I don’t expect you or Mark to accept me for who I am, and I listen to the show anyway. I hope hearing from me helps you
understand a little better how legal transition works (and that there are transgender people who are a lot like you). I’d appreciate if you left my name out of any further discussion or writing you may have on the topic, just for my safety.

Thanks for hearing me out,

[Name withheld by request.)

Here’s the article Mark and I discussed last Wednesday. And here’s my response:

Hello _____,

Back in the 90s, I co-wrote the first Inclusion Statement on a gun site that I am aware of. I’m sure Mark agrees with that.

I also wrote an article defending Nikki Stallard that is unfortunately no longer available.

I’d have to find time to listen to my segment with Mark because I’m pretty sure I couched it to clarify I was not commenting on transgenderism per se but on the legal issues surrounding Selective Service law. In re your experience with “legal sex,” it is helpful to know that but I would still need to determine what the law actually has to say and if it has even caught up with things. Case in point, they changed the 4473 to say “Male” Female” and “Non-Binary.” If someone born male put down “Female” would they be vulnerable to felony charges? Not being a lawyer I don’t know and suspect it would be new and unsettled with very little to reference.

In terms of the issue of LBGQT and all that, I believe in live and let live and not making anyone whose life is already hard enough any harder on them. That said, I reject demands that I embrace and laud someone for making that choice, and reserve the right to speak out against what I perceive to be deliberately outrageous advancement of a radical agenda. That, I speak out against. And that’s the best I can give you.

Regards,

David Codrea