Troop Count

The troops that weren't there:

The media’s much-claimed 15,000 number is almost four times the Pentagon’s 2025 count of 4,240 self-declared transgender service members. That number was posted as Pentagon officials formally adopted a policy barring any recognition of transgenderism in the U.S. military. The policy does not exclude service members who privately prefer to have been born a member of the opposite sex — but only those service members who insist that other service members treat them as members of the opposite sex. The policy declares: “The Department only recognizes two sexes: male and female. An individual’s sex is immutable, unchanging during a person’s life.” The new 4,240 number was reported in just four media outlets by late Friday. But the inflated estimate of 15,000 has been posted in many media outlets since 2011. The claim was validated by the media because a pro-transgender group claimed in 2011 and 2018 that there were roughly 15,000 transgender service members — and presumably because many reporters and editors sympathize with transgenderism.

But not our actual troops...