Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the military to stop accepting transgender applicants in a memo last Friday.

Hegseth’s directive, which was sent to senior DoD leaders, commanders of the combatant commands, and others, comes on the heels of multiple executive orders from President Donald Trump regarding the reversal of the Biden administration’s 2021 move to allow transgender people to serve, which overturned Trump’s ban from 2017 during his first term.

“Effective immediately, all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused, and all unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for service members are paused,” the memo said.

The one-page memo states that troops who have gender dysphoria “will be treated with dignity and respect,” and Hegseth directed the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness to issue new policies for current trans service members.

Trump signed an executive order at the end of January titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which said that identifying as a gender that does not correspond with one’s sex “conflicts” with the characteristics required to serve in the military.

“Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, 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,” the executive order said. “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.” 

The Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, trying to block implementation of the order. It was filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, based in Seattle.

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“This discriminatory ban is a threat to our national security, wastes years of training and financial investments, and is unconstitutional,” said Sarah Warbelow, Vice President of Legal, Human Rights Campaign Foundation. “Thousands of transgender servicemembers have already met the military’s rigorous standards and more than proven themselves. Our military must be able to recruit the best candidates, retain the highly-trained servicemembers, and every qualified patriot should be able to serve free of discrimination.”

There are roughly 1.3 million active-duty personnel. Officials say the number of trans service members is in the low thousands, according to Reuters.