https://wapo.st/3Sl9JFz
She’d tried to track down the payment. She’d made exactly 100 phone calls to military officials. She’d contacted her senator and her representative. She’d filed an inspector general’s complaint, and she’d texted every former National Guard superior whose phone number she had. No one could tell her why she hadn’t received the money or if she ever would.
Shapiro’s case is extreme, but The Washington Post has identified at least a dozen transgender troops who still have not received tens of thousands of dollars of severance funds they are owed, according to nonprofit leaders and lawyers. The total number of former service members who might have had severance payments withheld is unclear because each branch has different payment procedures.
An Indiana Army National Guardsman with twin 3-year-olds amassed $10,000 in debt while waiting for a $130,000 check.
An Air Force major who flew search-and-rescue helicopters was supposed to receive $340,000 and now relies on food banks for groceries.
And at least
17 other Air Force members were promised early retirement, only to have the government claw back the agreement before the payments arrived.
Chloe is the person in the article and it seems that despite someone's claim that he couldn't access the article, he was able to view the photo of the woman, so I'm a bit skeptical of the claim about the article being behind a paywall, although I've been told that sometimes WaPo asks for an email address before allowing one to read a free article. I wouldn't know since I've been a subscriber for years, but I can post more of the article if requested.
Chloe Shapiro is one of a dozen former service members identified by The Washington Post who have waited months for full payments.
I can't read the article either without giving out my email address or creating an account which I don't want to do. I already get enough spam as it is. The WaPO is not asking for money, though. But you can see Chloe's picture at the top and the title of the article. Is there some other way to view the article?
Is Chloe not receiving severence pay
because she's transgender, or is it because of a broken system*? That doesn't seem clear, but the article (and you, with the OP title) seems to want you to think that it's because she's transgender. Other transgender people apparently received their severance pay. For what reason would they single out Chloe?
Regarding transwomen in the military, I'm kind of on the fence about it. I'm not sure its a great idea, for the same reasons that I have regarding transwomen being in female locker rooms, female prisons, etc. I would have to know more about the living conditions and the military lifestyle to come to a firm conclusion about it. For example, do transwomen use female group showers on board a ship or at a military base? How do the biological women feel about that? Questions like that. The military rejects a lot of potential recruits based on various physical and mental limitations or disabilities, including basic things like height and weight, poor eyesight, bone spurs (
). Is gender identity somehow a sacred cow?
* Example: My brother is the trustee of my parents' estate and he has been trying for several years to get mutual fund assets (over $30,000) now residing with the CA Sec of State Controller's office that is clearly in my parents' name. They rarely answer the phone, and if they do, they put him on hold for an ungodly amount of time, they don't follow up and they most recently sent a lettter to him denying the claim due to "insufficient proof of identity", with no details. Its been a nightmare. It has nothing to do with anyone's race or gender. And yet, others have received their funds from the State Controller with minimal hassle. Sometimes you just get lucky, sometime not.
