Trans troop ban reversed
Pentagon ordered to end bias over gender identity
President Joe Biden on Monday overturned former President Donald Trump’s policy that aimed to ban transgender troops from serving in the military.
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Monday overturned President Donald Trump’s policy that aimed to ban transgender troops from service.
Biden directed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to implement a policy that prohibits discrimination against troops based on their gender identity and requires the Pentagon to report within 60 days its progress in unraveling the ban.
Biden said the move makes the nation safer.
“Today, I repealed the discriminatory ban on transgender people serving in the military,” Biden said in a tweet. “It’s simple: America is safer when everyone qualified to serve can do so openly and with pride.”
The directive is one of Biden’s first moves to unravel Trump’s legacy in the military and elsewhere in government.
In a statement Monday, Austin called repeal of the ban “the right thing to do. It is also the smart thing to do.”
The Pentagon will ensure transgender troops are not discharged or denied reenlistment based on gender identity, Austin said.
They will also receive medically required treatment for transition. The Pentagon will review cases of transgender troops who had action taken against them under the Trump-era ban.
“We would be rendering ourselves less fit to the task if we excluded from our ranks people who meet our stanMattis
dards and who have the skills and the devotion to serve in uniform,” Austin said.
In 2016, the Pentagon under President Barack Obama repealed a longstanding policy that prohibited transgender troops from serving openly, and it allowed them to receive counseling and medical treatment, including surgery. A study commissioned by the Pentagon found that overturning the ban would have minimal costs and effects on the readiness of troops to fight.
Trump announced by tweet in July 2017 his intent to ban transgender troops, a move that surprised Pentagon brass. Amid court challenges, the Pentagon implemented a policy developed under then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that banned troops who required treatment for gender dysphoria.
said the policy was needed because treating transgender troops detracted from the military’s readiness to fight.
Gender dysphoria results from the conflict between physical gender and gender identity and should not disqualify troops from serving, according to the American Medical Association and other major medical and psychiatric organizations.
The Trump policy required transgender troops to serve based on their sex at birth. Transgender troops who had begun receiving treatment under the Obama-era policy were grandfathered in.
The Pentagon estimated that there were about 9,000 transgender troops serving in 2016, and about 1,000 had a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.