Transgender ban is expected within 6 months

Directive allows DOD to force out service members

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is preparing to give the Defense Department authority to expel transgender people from the military in an upcoming order, barring the Pentagon from recruiting transgender troops and cutting off payment for sexual reassignment surgery and other medical treatments for those already serving.

A White House memo that is expected to be sent to the Pentagon in the coming days gives Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense, six months to enforce the transgender ban that Trump announced abruptly last month in a series of tweets. The directive was confirmed by a person familiar with its contents but who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The authority has not been finalized. Once it is approved, it would allow Mattis to force out transgender members by setting a legal standard of whether they would be able to deploy to war zones or for other lengthy missions.

The president’s order caught senior military officials by surprise and shortcircuited the customary interagency process that attends such sweeping decisions. At the time, as military officials scrambled to determine how to carry out the order, White House officials said they would work with the Pentagon to devise a policy to fit Trump’s tweets.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, declined late Wednesday to comment on any forthcoming guidance, saying the White House had no announcement on the matter.

Advocates of allowing transgender people to serve openly said the guidance imposed an unacceptable double standard.

“It is unconscionable that the commander in chief would take aim at his own, loyally serving troops for political reasons at a time when the military needs to focus on real threats,” said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a research institute that had worked with the military to devise its policy on admitting transgender service members.

“Imposing one set of standards for transgender troops and another set of standards for everyone else is a recipe for disruption, distraction and waste,” Belkin said.

Trump has declared that U.S. forces could not afford the “tremendous medical costs and disruption” of transgender service members. He said he had consulted generals and military experts, but Mattis was given only a day’s notice about the decision.