White House setting rules on trans ban
Policy guidance said to be headed Pentagon’s way
WASHINGTON — The White House is preparing guidance for the Pentagon to carry out President Donald Trump’s decision to bar transgender people from the military, but the ban appears to have exceptions for current service members, according to a military officer familiar with the deliberations.
The draft details suggest that White House officials are backing away from the blanket ban Trump described, instead giving discretion to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to retain people serving in the military while barring new entrants who are transgender.
Mattis reportedly could allow a self-declared transgender service member to remain in the military if the person is considered capable of being deployed in a war zone, in military exercises or aboard ship.
The Pentagon would have to stop admitting transgender individuals into the military, end payments for medical treatment related to gender transition and fully implement the restrictions within six months, according to the draft guidelines, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal in Thursday’s editions.
The guidelines are not final and have not been sent to the Pentagon.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to say if the White House is close to sending such guidance to the Defense Department. “When we have an announcement on that I’ll let you know,” she said.
In anticipation, however, one congressional critic vowed to seek legislation undoing any ban.
“When I was bleeding to death in my Black Hawk helicopter after I was shot down, I didn’t care if the American troops risking their lives to help save me were gay, straight, transgender, black, white or brown,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a Democrat who lost both legs in a helicopter crash during her Army service in Iraq.
Trump announced the ban July 26 on Twitter, writing that the military would no longer “accept or allow” transgender troops to serve “in any capacity.”
The announcement was a reversal for Trump, who had promised repeatedly during his 2016 presidential campaign to support the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Although the president wrote that he decided after “consultation with my Generals and military experts,” top military officials said they were blindsided. In an unusual move, the Pentagon indicated it would not take action without fuller presidential guidance through proper channels.
Trump, by his tweet, was attempting to undo a policy of his predecessor. The Obama administration last year lifted a long-standing ban on transgender service members, allowing those in the ranks to come out openly. The Pentagon was preparing to allow openly transgender individuals to join the military in 2018.
The day after Trump’s tweet, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., told commanders in a memo that the current permissive policy would remain until “direction” came from the White House and an “implementation guidance” had been issued from the secretary of defense.
If the Trump administration declares some service members can’t be deployed on ships, in combat or for military exercises because of their gender identity, the Pentagon could be vulnerable to lawsuits claiming its standard is discriminatory.
Five transgender women in the military filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this month accusing Trump and the Pentagon of unconstitutional discrimination and violating their rights to equal protection and due process.
Trump wrote in his tweets that he wanted to bar transgender troops because of “tremendous medical costs” and “disruption.”
A RAND Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon last year estimated there were about 2,450 transgender individuals serving on active duty. It concluded that allowing transgender troops to serve openly would cost an extra $2.4 million to $8.4 million in additional health care costs annually, a tiny fraction of the Pentagon’s $6 billion health care budget.
The study also predicted “little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness or readiness.”