Skip to main content

Pentagon Reverses Trump’s Ban of Transgender People from Serving in the Military


The Department of Defense on Wednesday announced that it was reversing a Donald Trump-era rule preventing transgender people from serving in the U.S. military, issuing the new policy on International Transgender Day of Visibility.

“DoD and the Military Departments will institute policies to provide Service members a process by which they may transition gender while serving,” the 22-page information guide stated. “These policies are based on the conclusion that open service by transgender persons who are subject to the same high standards and procedures as other Service members with regard to medical fitness for duty, physical fitness, uniform and grooming standards, deployability, and retention is consistent with military service and readiness.”

President Joe Biden had issued an executive order less than a week after taking office in January, which rescinded the previous administration’s policy — ceasing any further discharges on the basis of gender identity and ordering the military to correct records of those who had been barred from service or involuntarily discharged. Per Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the Pentagon then performed a two-month review concerning how to best implement the policy.

Former President Trump in 2016 announced his decision to ban transgender servicemembers via his since-permanently suspended Twitter account.

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” he wrote. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

The announcement caught many of the top brass at the Pentagon off guard, particularly given the all-encompassing scope of Trump’s proposed ban. Several lawsuits ensued, but the DoD in 2019 implemented less-sweeping restrictions that required all those serving in the military to serve in the capacity of their “birth gender.”

Air Force Lt. Col. Bree Fram, the president of the transgender military advocacy group SPART*A, praised the newly released rules.

“We applaud this step to ensure the Department of Defense provides inclusive policy to attract and retain the best and brightest our nation has to offer,” Fram said in a statement to NPR. “Military personnel reach maximum effectiveness when they have access to all medically necessary care and we are excited that this policy extends that access to transgender service members. Additionally, opening recruitment to transgender individuals ensures an extremely talented and motivated pool of people that this country needs have the opportunity to serve in uniform.”

Read the new Pentagon policy below.

WH Military-Transgender Order by Law&Crime on Scribd

[image via YouTube screengrab]

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Biden says K-12 education isn't working — calls for free pre-K to "grade 14"

President Joe Biden on Wednesday praised the nation's K-12 education system for fueling America's economic growth for almost a century. But, he stressed, that system may no longer be sufficient as the foundation for future prosperity. Mr. Biden's American Families Plan is taking aim at an issue that has bedeviled economists as well as millions of families struggling to stay afloat financially: A high school diploma is no longer enough to secure a middle-class life. Under the White House proposal, the nation's K-12 system would be expanded on both ends — from free pre-kindergarten education through a "grade 14," funding two years of schooling before kindergarten and two years of post-high school education through free community college. There's plenty of economic research that links rising high school graduation rates throughout the 20th century to faster U.S. economic growth. For example, broadening education help women enter the workforce and enabled men ...
Post a Comment
Read more

In Trump Farm Bailout, Top 1% Reaped Nearly One-Fourth of Aid

LISTEN TO ARTICLE 4:43 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg The Trump administration’s farm bailouts steered an expanding share of subsidy payments to the nation’s biggest farms, according to an analysis by an environmental advocacy group that highlights issues of equity as the Biden administration designs potential new climate-related financial incentives for farmers. Just 1% of farm aid recipients collected 23% of subsidy payments in 2019, up from 17% in 2016, as former President Donald Trump’s trade bailout swelled payments to farmers. Their portion crept up to 24% in the first half of 2020, the most recent period covered in the data, as farm aid hit a record level with coronavirus relief payments, according to the Environmental Working Group analysis. That is the largest share of federal farm subsidies going to the top 1% -- the 7,873 subsidy recipients who got the highest payments -- since 2007, accordi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hundreds of Trump supporters stuck in the cold for hours when buses can’t reach Omaha rally

The buses, the huge crowd soon learned, couldn’t navigate the jammed airport roads. For hours, attendees — including many elderly Trump supporters — stood in the cold, as police scrambled to help those most at-risk get to warmth. At least seven people were taken to hospitals, according to Omaha Scanner, which monitors official radio traffic. Police and fire authorities didn’t immediately return messages from The Washington Post early Wednesday and declined to provide reporters on the scene with precise numbers of how many needed treatment. The Trump campaign said it had provided enough buses but that traffic on the two-lane road outside the airport was throttled to one direction after the rally, tweeted Aaron Sanderford, a political reporter at the Omaha World-Herald. The campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message from The Post early on Wednesday. AD AD The confusion and the freezing weather added to the health risks that accompany every Trump rally during the novel coronavirus p...
Post a Comment
Read more