WASHINGTON — President Trump has signed an executive order directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender troops, likely setting in motion a future ban on their military service.

Trump had tried to impose a ban on transgender troops during his first term, but it was tangled up in the courts for years before being overturned by then-President Joe Biden shortly after he took office.

Trump in his order Monday claimed that troops who identify as a gender other than their biological one “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” He said that was harmful to military readiness and, due to that, required a revised policy to address the matter.

Lawyers for transgender troops who challenged the ban in the courts during Trump’s first term have already pledged to fight the new ban.