The new order on transgender troops does not impose an immediate ban, but directs the Pentagon to come up with a policy on their service in the armed forces based on military readiness.
ADVERTISEMENT
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender men and women in the military, likely setting in motion a future ban on their military service.
The order does not impose an immediate ban but directs the Pentagon to come up with a policy on their service in the armed forces based on military readiness.
Trump had tried to impose a ban on transgender troops during his first term, but it was tangled up in the courts for years before being overturned by former President Joe Biden shortly after he took office.
The back-and-forth pendulum swing between the Trump and Biden administrations has left in the balance the transgender men and women who have volunteered to serve their country.
The number of transgender service members is a tiny fraction of the 2.1 million in the military, even though it’s become an outsized rallying point for Trump’s second term, as well as Hegseth.
Before he was named to the post, Hegseth wrote in his book War on Warriors that “for the recruits, for the military, and primarily for the security of the country, transgender people should never be allowed to serve. It’s that simple.”
In July 2017, Trump announced via a post on social media he was not going to allow transgender people to serve in the military “in any capacity”.
Over the next two years, his administration worked through the complex details of who would be affected by the ban based on where they were in their surgical transitions and how they identified while facing multiple legal challenges.
In 2019, the US Supreme Court allowed the administration's ban to stand in part while the legal challenges worked their way through the court system.
Once Biden took office in 2021, one of his early acts was to overturn the ban, with the Pentagon announcing it would also cover transition medical expenses for troops.
The number of transgender men and women known to be serving is possibly from around 9,000 to potentially as many as 14,000. The Department of Defence referred queries on the number of transgender service members to the individual services.
Lawyers who fought the ban the first time around said they are prepared to rechallenge any prohibition.