PENTAGON CLOSER TO POLICY CHANGE

Military may open to transgender troops

WASHINGTON Defense Secretary Ash Carter issued two directives Monday moving the Pentagon closer to allowing transgender men and women to serve openly in the military.

First, Carter ordered the creation of a Pentagon working group “to study over the next six months the policy and readiness implications of welcoming transgender persons to serve openly,” Carter said in a statement released Monday afternoon.

Carter also said all decisions to dismiss troops with gender dysphoria would be handled by Brad Carson, the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness. In recent months, all of the uniformed services have moved that decision to their highest levels.

“At my direction, the working group will start with the presumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified,” Carter said.

Senior brass have been skeptical of changing the transgender policy, arguing in private that the services have undergone rapid change in recent years and needed time to adjust to them, according to two Defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. They pointed to the ban on gay and lesbian troops being lifted and women being integrated into previously closed combat fields.