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The Push For Transgender Troops In The United States

WUNC | By Frank Stasio,
Andrew Tie
Published October 14, 2015 at 12:19 PM EDT
There are signs that transgender people could serve openly in the United States military within the next year.
The U.S. Army
/
Flickr Creative Commons
There are signs that transgender people could serve openly in the United States military within the next year.

Host Frank Stasio talks with KUOW military reporter Patricia Murphy about her reporting on transgender people serving in the American military

The American military permits people to serve regardless of sexual orientation, but there are still policies precluding military service based on gender identity.

About 15,000 transgender people currently serve in the American military in violation of the rules. The United States lags behind many other Western nations that allow transgender people to serve openly, but Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is pushing for change.

Host Frank Stasio talks with KUOW military reporter Patricia Murphy about her reporting as part of the American Homefront Project.

Copyright 2015 North Carolina Public Radio
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio
Andrew Tie