At the Pentagon, officials said they welcomed the action and indicated that the department would start implementing it quickly. “The department will take appropriate policy measures immediately to ensure that individuals who identify themselves as transgender are eligible to enter and serve in their self-identified gender,” Austin said in a statement. “No one will be separated or dismissed, or denied re-enlistment, just on the basis of gender identity.”
Mr. Austin said Mr. Biden’s executive order would “ensure that all necessary medical care related to the transition authorized by law is available to all members of the service”, which would remove a major obstacle for transgender men and women who seek to join or remain in the armed forces. He also promised to reexamine the cases of all members of the transgender service who are being forced to leave military service.
The main military leaders, for their part, reacted on Monday with some relief that the Pentagon would not have to continue defending the contentious ban – which spawned a series of lawsuits across the country – in the courts. Although military officials refused to speak publicly about the issue for fear of entering politics, General Milley said during his confirmation hearing in 2019, when asked about the transgender issue, that “I do not believe there is anything inherent in the identity of someone to prevent from serving in the army. “
Defense groups that had been fighting the ban since it was announced three years ago – in a Trump tweet – argued that the Pentagon did not need to spend months studying how to allow transgender people to serve because it has already done so. One such group, the Palm Center, said in a political memorandum last summer that the military could reopen to transgender people quickly if ordered to do so.
“A large ship can take a long time to turn around, the Pentagon often needs to study policy changes and move cautiously,” said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, in an interview in July. “But this is the rare case where, once the military left an inclusive policy in place for transgender personnel, even when they implemented their ban, the change is just waiting to be triggered.”
Others argued that it was Trump’s ban, not Biden’s reversal, that was poorly considered.