Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has frozen the current transgender troop policy, meaning that transgender members of the U.S. Military will be allowed to keep serving.
On Friday, President Donald Trump announced that he had signed a memo that would ban transgender recruits from the military, and ordered Mattis to study the issue further before implementing the changes put in place by the Obama Administration.
Now, Mattis has announced that he has a panel of experts that will make a recommendation at a later date regarding transgender individuals in the military. But for now, there will be no changes to current policy.
Def. Sec. Mattis announces expert panel to make recommendations for carrying out transgender ban, current policy stays in place in meantime pic.twitter.com/LWTI0UmkH3
— Kimberly Atkins (@KimberlyEAtkins) August 30, 2017
"Once the panel reports its recommendations and following my consultation with the secretary of Homeland Security, I will provide my advice to the president concerning implementation of his policy direction," Mattis said in the statement reported by multiple media outlets Tuesday.
"In the interim, current policy with respect to currently serving members will remain in place."
Well, this is certainly an unexpected turn of events.