Trump to Sign Executive Order Barring Transgender People From Military Service
President Donald Trump is expected to sign two new executive orders banning transgender people from enlisting in the military, as well as eliminating the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from the military.
The orders, expected to be signed on Monday, will reinstate Trump’s previous policy from his first term, which prohibited transgender people from serving in the military. On Trump’s first day in office for his new term, he issued a flurry of executive orders, including revoking the Biden administration’s 2021 order that reversed Trump’s first-term policy. Biden’s now revoked order allowed transgender people to enlist and those that were already enlisted would be covered for transition-related medical care.
The new orders issue directives “regarding trans-identifying medical standards for military service and to rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness,” as ABC News reports. It will also end the use of pronouns in the Department of Defense, and will prohibit people assigned male at birth from “sharing sleeping, changing, or bathing in facilities designated for females.”
It’s unclear how the Trump administration will handle service members who are already receiving transition-related medical care, which they were entitled to under Biden’s order.
“It can take a minimum of 12 months for an individual to complete treatments after so-called transition surgery, which often involves the use of heavy narcotics,” a White House document about Trump’s new trans military order states, according to NBC News. “In this time, they are not physically capable of meeting military readiness requirements and continue to require consistent medical care. This is not conducive for deployment or other readiness requirements.”
The document also claims Biden’s order — which reversed Trump’s first-term order — directed the Department of Defense to “pay for service members’ transition surgeries, as well as those of their dependent children — at a cost of millions of dollars to the American taxpayer.”
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