The memo, sent Thursday from the White House to the Department of Defense, gives the armed services a March 26 deadline to identify trans-identifying service members in their ranks. They will then have 30 days to arrange a separation for those troops.
The estimated number of open transgender troops varies according to the source but a “Pentagon Pride” event in 2019 said 14,700 were in uniform at the time.
This week’s memo is follow-up action to President Trump’s executive order, signed January 27. That candidly-worded EO said there is no room in a military uniform anyone who believes they were born in the wrong body, likening that condition to people who are suicidal, bipolar, and have eating disorders.
That executive order is entitled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness.”
Despite the clear issue of mental health, LGBT activists successfully lobbied the Biden administration to be “inclusive” and welcome open transgender personnel. A 2021 executive order signed by Biden, which reversed Trump’s ban, welcomed transgenders to serve in their “self-identified gender” and promised to provide medical care for their transition.
Under the Biden administration, transgender service members were not only accepted but were treated like brave heroes, much like Civil Rights activists, for breaking down barriers. The Pentagon under Biden recognized its transgender personnel during “International Transgender Day of Visibility,” proudly pointing out the military’s policy for “recruitment, retention, and care” for them.
That fawning description of a transgender soldier or sailor was echoed by a federal judge, Ana. C. Reyes. The judge, a Biden appointee, is overseeing a lawsuit filed by transgender service members to stop Trump. Speaking from the bench last week, the judge said the ban “reflects animosity” toward transgender people. She also challenged the DOJ attorneys standing before her to explain how a person’s pronouns affect military readiness.
“Because it doesn’t," the judge argued. "Because any common sense, rational human being understands that it doesn’t.”
Rational people also know a human being can't change their sex, too, but the DOJ attorneys mostly stood for the judge's tongue-lashing and did not push back on her claims, according to an NBC News story.
Trump’s executive order cites pronouns only once in the context of meeting the military’s high standards. A person with “shifting pronoun usage” is inconsistent with those standards, the EO states.
It is unclear yet how this week’s memo affects the lawsuit or how Judge Reyes will respond to it.
National security analyst Bob Maginnis, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, says President Trump understands the role of the armed forces and his role as commander in chief.
“And making the military decisive and a killing machine,” he says.
The stark truth of transgender service members, Maginnis tells AFN, is they used the military to pay for costly hormone treatments and surgeries, and then those treatments made them a liability and a non-deployable member of their unit.
“They’re sick,” he says of their mental illness.
“We need to deal with the real realities,” Maginnis warns, “of being prepared to kill and break things."
