Trump moves to ban transgender people from US military

Washington: President Donald Trump has issued executive orders asserting transgender people are mentally and physically unfit to serve in the US military, and directing his controversial secretary of defence to update policies to that effect.

The move seeks to reinstate a ban Trump enacted in his first term that was reversed by Joe Biden, and follows an order he signed last week, within hours of returning to the Oval Office, declaring the US government recognises only two sexes, male and female, and rejects “gender ideology”.

US President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House after returning from Florida on Monday night.Credit: Bloomberg

“Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” the president’s latest executive order said.

“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 honourable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.

“A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honour this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

It was not immediately clear how far-reaching the consequences would be for thousands of serving personnel. While exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, in 2019 the Department of Defence cited a survey that found nearly 9000 serving members considered themselves transgender, and said it was aware that 1400 had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

Transgender bans in the military were challenged in court when Donald Trump attempted them in his first term.Credit: AP

The department reportedly spent $US15 million ($23.8 million) on gender-affirming care – mostly psychotherapy, and some surgeries – to 1892 active duty members between 2016 and 2021.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a Washington-based LGBTQ advocacy group, said the new executive orders went further than the bans Trump enacted in his first term, which barred transgender people from enlisting.

This version was “effectively a complete ban on transgender people serving in the military that is expected to impact both transgender Americans interested in enlisting and the thousands of highly trained transgender troops currently protecting our country”.

HRC, along with Lambda Legal, announced it would sue, joining a growing list of states and interest groups challenging Trump’s orders in the legal system. “This order is unconstitutional, and we will see this administration in court,” said HRC vice president Sarah Warbelow.

Secretary of defence and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth arriving at the Pentagon for his first day.Credit: AP

Trump’s executive order said under long-standing defence policy, people with medical conditions or physical defects that could involve long periods of treatment or hospitalisation were “incompatible” with active duty.

But it went further, stating the military had been “afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists”, and “the pursuit of military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion”.

The order came at the same time as a memo from the president’s Office of Management and Budget which enacted an immediate pause on the expenditure of all federal grants and loans that could be affected by the president’s barrage of executive orders.

That may involve spending on foreign aid, non-government organisations, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, “woke gender ideology” and Green New Deal initiatives, the memo said.

About $US3 trillion ($4.8 trillion) in federal grants and loans was spent in 2024, according to the memo, and the sweeping pause was to start at 5pm on Tuesday (US time), giving agencies less than 24 hours’ notice and sending the federal bureaucracy into a spin.

But the pause itself was halted at the last minute by US District Judge Loren AliKhan, the AP reported. The administrative stay pauses the freeze until Monday.

Briefing reporters for the first time, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt noted the directive did not affect payments such as Medicare or social security. “Assistance that is going [directly] to individuals will not be impacted by this pause,” she said.

Two other orders signed overnight pertained to the military. One ordered the reinstatement of any personnel discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine under a mandate that ran from August 2021 to January 2023. It also said they would receive full back pay and benefits.

The other sought to purge DEI practices from the armed forces. Along with abolishing any DEI offices in the military or Department of Homeland Security, the order banned the promotion of “divisive concepts” such as critical race theory, gender ideology or the idea America’s founding documents are racist or sexist.

Implementation of the orders will fall to Pete Hegseth, Trump’s controversial pick for secretary of defence who was confirmed on Friday night after Vice President J.D. Vance used his casting vote to break a 50-50 tie. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was subject to accusations of sexual assault and inappropriate drunken behaviour, all of which he denied, though he promised to quit drinking if confirmed.

In his first remarks on the job at the Pentagon, Hegseth vowed to implement all of Trump’s orders “swiftly and without excuse”. His task will be to craft a policy, as then-secretary Jim Mattis did in 2017, in a way that can survive the impending court challenges.

However, the Supreme Court upheld the first ban in 2019, and the bench has only grown more conservative since then with Trump’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett in 2020.

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