President Donald Trump on Jan. 27 banned transgender service members from the US military yet again, representing a repackaged — and broader — version of his first administration’s policy restricting trans troops from the US Armed Forces.
Trump imposed his latest ban on trans troops through an executive order called “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which is laced with blatantly false information and biased right-wing talking points insisting that the Armed Forces “have been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists” and that the military would no longer respect transgender individuals’ gender identities in any way.
“It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,” the order states. “This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”
The executive order was signed alongside several other orders on the same day, including a separate order scrapping the military’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
The White House’s executive order on trans troops appears to go even further than when the Trump administration barred trans service members during the president’s first term. Under then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, “any transgender person with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria” was “presumptively disqualified for service, unless they were already serving and willing and able to serve in their biological gender at birth,” according to the previous ban on trans troops, which was first announced by Trump in a Twitter post in July of 2017. The policy faced legal hurdles, but nonetheless went into effect in 2019.
While former President Joe Biden subsequently nixed that policy, President Trump rescinded Biden’s order and opted to reinstate the ban under a broader executive order calling to ban anyone who even identifies as transgender from serving in any capacity — regardless of a gender dysphoria diagnosis.
“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 states. “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.”
Among other directives, the order states, “Absent extraordinary operational necessity, the Armed Forces shall neither allow males to use or share sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for females, nor allow females to use or share sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for males.”
The order calls for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to implement the policy, which also orders an end to “invented and identification-based pronoun usage” — yet another dismissive attack on respecting pronouns. For his part, Hegseth has a long anti-LGBTQ record dating back to his work as publisher of The Princeton Tory when he wrote that “it’s the lifestyle of homosexuality that we consider immoral,” Talking Points Memo reported. On the “Take It Outside with Jay Cutler and Sam Mackey” podcast, Hegseth described trans soldiers as “not deployable,” ABC news reported.
When asked by Gay City News to clarify whether the policy amounts to an outright ban on transgender troops, the Department of Defense offered an indirect answer.
“The Department of Defense will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives,” a Department of Defense official told Gay City News. “We will provide status updates as we are able.”
In 2019, Gay City News published an in-depth story highlighting the chaos and dysfunction behind the military’s uneven implementation of the policy during Trump’s first term. A Department of Defense representative told Gay City News at the time that the military would provide the number of service members discharged under the previous trans ban, but the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marines offered a variety of responses when contacted individually by Gay City News.
LGBTQ litigation groups immediately scrambled to take the Trump administration to court in response to the latest executive order. Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign said on Jan. 27 that they were planning to sue the Trump administration to block the policy from being implemented. On Jan. 28, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington on behalf of six active duty service members and two prospective service members seeking to join the military.
“President Trump’s repeated targeting of transgender service members is a stain on our military,” Shannon Minter, NCLR’s legal director, said in a written statement. “Anyone who meets the standards should be able to serve. There are already thousands of transgender service members currently in the military who have met the standards and more than proven themselves.”
Out trans US Navy Commander Emily Shilling, who leads SPARTA Pride, an organization for trans service members, emphasized in an interview with Gay City News that the new policy, at least for now, is vague. How it will actually be implemented, she said, is not yet clear, but she acknowledged that it could amount to some sort of a ban on at least a portion of trans service members.
“It feels like a complete waste of talent,” said Shilling, speaking on her personal behalf rather than for the military. Shilling is a Navy test pilot with nearly two decades of service — including dozens of combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“All I want to do is keep serving. I’ve got the skills; I’ve got the training — let me keep serving,” she said. “To have my honor questioned just feels like a disservice for what I’ve done for this country.”
SPARTA Pride boasts a membership base of trans troops from across the United States and serves primarily as a peer support system to help trans service members thrive. In leading the organization, Shilling said she is struck by the “incredible resilience” of trans service members who continue to push forward in the face of such fierce adversity.
Shilling said the organization’s mission will continue to focus on peer support, which will become even more important as the military prepares to carry out the executive order. But Shilling also hopes to engage with the military to see what can be done.
“On the advocacy side, I look forward to working with the Pentagon and with lawmakers to help them see a different perspective,” Shilling said.
Out gay Congressmember Mark Takano, who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, slammed the Trump administration in response to the executive order.
“Our military has invested millions of dollars into training these brave Americans who signed up to serve their nation,” Takano said. “Now, despite their sacrifices, President Trump is unlawfully and unconstitutionally calling for them to be kicked to the curb simply because he doesn’t like who they are.”
