President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday night that, in effect, bans transgender people from serving in the U.S. military.
The order is a follow-up to one he signed hours after being sworn into office last week that revoked the Biden administration’s 2021 move to allow transgender service members to serve, which that administration did to overturn Trump’s ban from 2017 during his first term.
Trump directly argues in Monday’s order 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 reads. “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.”
It does not immediately or specifically ban transgender service members, but it does specify that the department’s policy for troop readiness is “inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria.”
The order gives Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth 30 days to issue guidance necessary to “fully implement this order” and submit a report to the White House on it.
The Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal announced Tuesday that they intend to sue the Trump administration to block the implementation of the order.
“Our military service members, including thousands of transgender troops, wear the same uniform, take the same oath, and meet the same rigorous standards. They are heroes who put their lives on the line to protect our country—and we owe them all a debt of gratitude,” HRC Vice President of Legal Sarah Warbelow said.
There are roughly 14,000 transgender service members in the U.S. military, according to a 2018 estimate from the Palm Center, an independent research institute that has conducted research on sexual minorities in the military. There are other differing estimates as well. A Congressional Research Service paper from January 2024 referred to a 2016 RAND Corporation report, which estimated that 1,320 to 6,630 personnel serving in the active component and 830 to 4,160 in the selected reserve identified as transgender.
This was one of four executive orders Trump involving the military that he signed aboard Air Force One as he flew from Florida to Washington.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
One of them barred all diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the military, which Republicans have argued has taken away from the military’s primary goal of lethality and deterrence.
Another one of the orders Trump signed called for the reinstatement of the roughly 8,000 service members who were separated from the military over their refusal to get the coronavirus vaccine. That order calls for those individuals to “receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation.”