President Trump has issued an executive order aimed at banning transgender service members within the U.S. military.
The order was signed late Monday on board Air Force One as the president traveled back to Washington from Florida. It clears the path for the Department of Defense to ban thousands of transgender individuals from serving, citing unfounded concerns about mental and physical fitness. The fate of currently enlisted transgender service members remains unclear, including whether they will be allowed to continue serving or face discharge.
The document stated: “Adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
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Though exact numbers are unknown, estimates from a 2014 UCLA study suggested there could be as many as 15,500 transgender people serving on active or reserve duty.
At a Republican congressional retreat in Miami earlier on Monday, Trump declared: “To ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, we will get transgender ideology the hell out of our military.”
The move is part of the president’s broader attack on the transgender community. During his inaugural address last week, Trump asserted that the government acknowledges “only two genders: male and female.” Shortly afterward, he revoked a Biden-era executive order that had permitted transgender service members in the military. And attempting to justify a separate action on Monday pausing all federal grants, loans and other financial assistance, the White House Budget Office claimed, “The use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism and Green New Deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.”
During his first administration, Trump similarly sought a transgender military ban, which was announced via a series of tweets in 2017. Transgender troops already serving were allowed to remain on duty.
The 2017 ban faced immediate legal challenges, resulting in an injunction that delayed its enforcement for nearly two years until the Supreme Court lifted it in 2019. However, the Court has not yet addressed the underlying legality of prohibiting transgender service members in the military.
Trump’s new ban could have far-reaching consequences for the thousands of active-duty transgender service members currently enlisted. With unclear provisions outlining how the ban will be implemented, fears are high that many service members could face forced discharges, career interruptions, and barriers to accessing essential support systems within the military.
Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign responded with an announcement to sue the Trump administration “to block implementation of yet another discriminatory and dangerous attempt to bar patriotic transgender military service members from serving openly in the U.S. armed services,” Lambda Legal wrote in a press release.
“We have been here before and seven years ago were able to successfully block the earlier administration’s effort to prevent patriotic, talented Americans from serving their country,” said Sasha Buchert, Lambda Legal counsel and director of the Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project. “Not only is such a move cruel, it compromises the safety and security of our country and is particularly dangerous and wrong. As we promised then, so do we now: we will sue.”
