The Times of London (“Donald Trump to kick transgender troops out of US military“):
Donald Trump is planning an executive order that would lead to the removal of all transgender members of the US military, defence sources say.
The order could come on his first day back in the White House, January 20. 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.
It would also lead to a ban on trans people joining the military and would come at a time when almost all branches of the American armed forces are failing to meet recruitment targets.
Trump, 78, has railed against “woke” practices in the military, saying that some high-ranking officers are often more interested in diversity, equity and inclusion than planning to fight.
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 President Biden rescinded the order, but this time even those with decades of service will be removed from their posts, according to several sources.
“These people will be forced out at a time when the military can’t recruit enough people,” a source familiar with Trump’s plans said. “Only the Marine Corps is hitting its numbers for recruitment and some people who will be affected are in very senior positions.”
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.
There are believed to be thousands of other personnel who identify as transgender.
Reporting on this is scant with The Independent (“Trump reportedly plans to kick trans troops out of the military within days of inauguration“) and various other British sources and The Daily Beast (“Trump Reportedly Plans to Banish Transgender Troops From the U.S. Military“) are the only outlets I see covering the story.
The Times report focuses on the readiness implications:
“Should a trans ban be implemented from day one of the Trump administration it would undermine the readiness of the military and create an even greater recruitment and retention crisis, not to mention signalling vulnerability to America’s adversaries,” said Rachel Branaman, executive director of Modern Military Association of America, which campaigns on behalf of LGBTQ+ military personnel and veterans.
“Abruptly discharging 15,000-plus service members, especially given that the military’s recruiting targets fell short by 41,000 recruits last year, adds administrative burdens to war fighting units, harms unit cohesion, and aggravates critical skill gaps,” she said. “There would be a significant financial cost, as well as a loss of experience and leadership that will take possibly 20 years and billions of dollars to replace.”
But the 15,000 number is almost certainly vastly overstated. Additionally, to the extent the fight over “woke” issues is contributing to the recruiting and retention problem, it may actually be a wash given that the enlistment base in particular is typically disproportionately Southern and rural.
More important, it seems to me, is the breaking of faith with those who have chosen to serve and made life decisions accordingly. Those quoted, though, still put the focus on the talent loss:
Trans people already serving in the military say that as well as causing them significant personal hardship, a new ban would be disastrous for the armed forces.
“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,” said a serving US Air Force non-commissioned officer, who preferred not to give their name.
Paulo Batista, a transgender analyst in the US navy, said that a ban would not only put a premature end to his career, it would also cause upheaval across the forces.
“I have four years left on my contract,” he said. “But 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 dismissed another argument made by those opposed to trans people serving in the military: that the Pentagon had to cover spiralling costs of gender dysphoria treatment.
“There is no money being spent, it’s just continued care,” he said. “People enlisting are just slightly hormone deficient, but the bigger picture is how many other people are going to be affected. Kicking out the 15,000 would affect the whole fleet, the whole battalion. It’s everyone.”
The legality of this potential move is not clear to me. The ACLU filed a lawsuit back in 2017 when Trump first banned trans troops from enlisting, but the case (Stone vs. Trump) became moot when Biden rescinded the order. One would think Supreme Court rulings that treat anti-trans discrimination as simple sex discrimination under Title IX would settle the issue, but the courts have tended to give enormous leeway to the President in his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services.
Given both the huge emphasis on the trans issue during the campaign and the nomination of Pete Hegseth to run the Pentagon, this news hardly comes as a shock. But the legal status of transgender adults needs to be settled quickly.
