Transgender troops can continue to serve, for now

Defense secretary freezes the president’s ban until the Pentagon can study the issue.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary James N. Mattis says the Pentagon won’t change its policy of allowing transgender people to serve in the U. S. military until he receives recommendations from a panel that is supposed to report back on the effects of a ban.

The panel will be drawn from the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department, but its members have not yet been named. They will examine how the Pentagon can carry out President Trump’s directive banning transgender individuals from entering the armed forces.

Mattis’ statement Tuesday night came in response to Trump’s memo last Friday that directed Mattis, in consultation with the secretary of Homeland Security, to submit a plan to him by Feb. 21. Trump has yet to appoint a new Homeland Security secretary to replace John F. Kelly, who became White House chief of staff.

“As directed, we will develop a study and implementation plan, which will contain the steps that will promote military readiness, lethality and unit cohesion, with due regard for budgetary constraints and consistent with applicable law,” Mattis said.

He said the panel would be made up of people with “mature experience, most notably in combat and deployed operations, and seasoned judgment to this task.”

In the interim, transgender troops currently serving will remain in the armed forces under existing policy, he said.

That policy, which was begun by President Obama last year after a lengthy Pentagon review, placed protection of gender rights in the military on par with race, religion, color, sex and sexual orientation. The move was part of a broader initiative to bring the military in line with shifts in social attitudes.

For the f irst time, transgender service members could serve openly, and several thousand people in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard did so. The services had to provide medical and training plans, and arrange full implementation by July 1, 2017.

Mattis had pushed that deadline back six months before Trump unexpectedly announced on July 26 that he planned to reverse Obama’s policy entirely, saying the military would neither accept nor allow transgender people to serve.