WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 15: Joseph Fons holding a Pride Flag in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building after the court ruled that LGBTQ people can not be disciplined or fired based on their sexual orientation, Washington, DC, June 15, 2020. With Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch joining the Democratic appointees, the court ruled 6-3 that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Fons is wearing a Black Lives Matter mask with the words 'I Can't Breathe', as a precaution against Covid-19. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump signed executive orders barring transgender people from serving in the military and terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the service.
During his first term in 2016, Trump signed an executive order to bar trans troops from the military. On the first day of his second term in office, the president signed an order that revoked former President Joe Biden‘s 2021 directive, which allowed trans people to serve openly in the military.
The new order directs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to adjust medical standards and outline new military readiness requirements to ensure that they “prioritize readiness and lethality” and work to “end the use of invented and identification-based pronouns” within DOD.
Differing from the executive orders around transgender issues in Trump’s first term, this order’s fact sheet uses the term “trans-identifying” in place of transgender, marking a significant right-wing shift on the matter.
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This order reinforces the Trump administration’s stance on gender issues after he signed an executive order on day one recognizing only two genders, male and female.
While the exact figures are not publicly available, experts report that there are an estimated 9,000 to 14,000 transgender service members. The orders follow a planned part of a campaign taken up by Trump and Hegseth to sift out any DEI practices in the military.
A White House memo states, “Unit cohesion requires high levels of integrity and stability among service members” and that there can be “no accommodation for anything less than resilience, strength, and the ability to withstand extraordinary physical demands.”
A fact sheet for the order states that “it can take a minimum of 12 months for an individual to complete treatments after transition surgery, which often involves the use of heavy narcotics.” Most trans people fully recover within two weeks and are put on hormone supplements, not narcotics, experts say.
The order also bars transgender women’s access to sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for females.
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