President-elect Donald Trump is planning an executive order that would remove all people who believe they are “transgender” from the US military, according to a report from the British daily newspaper The Times.
Defense sources who spoke to the outlet reportedly said that the order could come on Trump’s first day back in the White House (via The Times):
There are believed to be about 15,000 active service personnel who are transgender. They would be medically discharged, which would determine that they were unfit to serve.
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The ban is expected to be wider ranging than a similar order made during his first term in office, when Trump prevented transgender people joining the armed forces, but allowed those already serving to keep their jobs. President Biden rescinded the order, but this time even those with decades of service will be removed from their posts, according to several sources.
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According to the Pentagon, privacy policies make it difficult to measure the number of active duty trans people, but about 2,200 service members had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2021, when Trump’s first ban was lifted. There are about 1.3 million active duty personnel in the military.
One source who spoke to The Times said, “These people will be forced out at a time when the military can’t recruit enough people.”
“Only the Marine Corps is hitting its numbers for recruitment and some people who will be affected are in very senior positions,” they added.
A US Air Force non-commissioned officer who is “transgender” told the outlet that “There are very few members of my career field with this experience, and in the event of a large-scale contingency, it would be difficult to replace the level of experience that I bring to the table.”
Paulo Batista, a transgender analyst in the US Navy, said, “you take 15,000 of us out — there’s more but that’s the number that is always mentioned — that’s 15,000 leadership positions, every one of us play a vital role.”
“There are junior enlisted personnel to high-end officers. You pull one of us out, that means others have to cover. These jobs could take months or even years to fill,” Batista added.
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