Executive orders that limit transgender service and tighten down on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the military are anticipated to be signed by President Donald Trump on Monday.
The order pertaining to transgender service members and prospective recruits will rescind an order issued by former President Joe Biden that permitted transgender service members to enlist and currently enlisted trans service members to receive coverage for transition-related medical care, as well as reinstate a policy that Trump issued during his first term.
According to a White House paper on the impending executive order, the order will alter all Department of Defense medical standards to make sure they prioritize lethality and preparedness. Additionally, it will ban the use of identification-based and invented pronouns in the military, forbid the use of women’s restrooms for sleeping, changing, or bathing, and prevent coverage of transition-related medical care for presently enlisted service personnel and their families.
Transgender service members who are presently serving will not be immediately dismissed because the directive will take time to implement. Tricare, the military’s health care program, is now providing transition-related care to service members; it is unclear what will happen to them. In December, Biden signed a defense bill that already forbade coverage of gender-affirming care for transgender children of service members.
Transgender service members were classified as either exempt or non-exempt under the Trump administration’s 2017 trans military restriction. Exempt service members came out as trans before the restriction and were permitted to continue serving openly and receive transition-related medical care, while non-exempt service members had to continue serving as their assigned sex at birth and were only eligible for therapy and other transition-related care covered by Tricare. Additionally, openly transgender individuals were not allowed to enlist under that policy.
Because it let service members to request a waiver, the administration at the time insisted that the policy was not a trans military ban, as it was commonly known. However, just one waiver was made public during the four years it was in force.
According to the White House paper regarding Trump’s new trans military directive, “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.” They still need regular medical care and are not physically able to achieve military readiness requirements at this time. Deployment and other readiness criteria are not supported by this.
According to the document, Biden’s order to lift Trump’s final ban on transgender service members required the Department of Defense to cover the cost of transition surgeries for service members and their dependent children, which came to millions of dollars for the American taxpayer.
The number of transgender people serving in the military is not officially disclosed by the Department of Defense, and estimates vary greatly. According to a 2014 study by the UCLA Williams Institute, which used data from the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, there were around 15,500 transgender individuals serving in the armed forces. According to a 2016 Rand Corporation report, which drew on Department of Defense data and earlier studies (such as the Williams Institute report), there were up to 10,790 transgender individuals serving in the armed forces and reserves, while the number could be as low as 2,150.
The Congressional Research Service reportsthat was updated earlier this month revealed that the Department of Defense spent over $15 million to give 1,892 active duty service members with transition-related care (including nonsurgical and surgical) between 2016 and 2021. According to Military.com, which cited Defense Department data, $11.5 million of that sum was allocated to psychotherapy and $3.1 million to surgery.
Trump is anticipated to sign additional orders on Monday that will forbid diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the military, disband any DEI offices within the Department of Defense and Homeland Security, and mandate that the secretaries of both agencies examine the curricula of the United States Service Academies to make sure they eradicate radical gender and DEI ideologies.
No more DEI at @DeptofDefense and No exceptions, name-changes, or delays, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated in a post that was shared on X on Sunday. A picture of a handwritten notice that read, “Those who do not comply will no longer work here,” was included in the post.
Trump’s major aims in his second term have been to limit diversity initiatives and reverse transgender rights advances from the Biden administration. He signed scores of executive orders within hours of his inauguration, one of which ended DEI programs within federal agencies and another stating that only two sexes—male and female—will be recognized by the U.S. government. The State Department suspended all passport applications demanding sex-marker alterations last week due to the gender-related regulation.