WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden must issue an executive order to reverse a Pentagon policy that largely prohibits transgender individuals from joining the armed forces, discarding a ban ordered by President Donald Trump in a tweet during his first year in office, a person informed about the decision, tells the Associated Press.
Biden is expected to change Trump’s policy in his early days in office. The White House could announce the measure as early as Monday, according to the person informed about the decision that spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the order.
The move to reverse the policy is supported by Biden’s recently confirmed defense secretary, retired general Lloyd Austin, who spoke about the need to overthrow it during his Senate confirmation hearing last week.
“I support the president’s plan or the plan to lift the ban,” said Austin. “If you are fit and qualified to serve and can maintain standards, you must be allowed to serve.
The decision comes at a time when Biden plans to turn his attention to issues of heritage that he believes continue to obscure almost every aspect of American life. Prior to his inauguration, the Biden transition team distributed a memo from Ron Klain, now the White House chief of staff, outlining Biden’s plan to use his first full week as president “to promote equity and support communities of color. and other needy communities. “
The move to overturn the transgender ban is also the latest example of Biden using executive authority in his early days as president to dismantle Trump’s legacy. His first actions include orders to lift a Trump administration ban on travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries, halt construction of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and launch an initiative to promote racial equality.
Biden is also due to hold a ceremonial inauguration ceremony on Monday at the White House by Austin, who became the nation’s first black defense secretary.
It is unclear how quickly the Pentagon can put a new policy in place and whether it will take time to work out the details.
Until a few years ago, members of the military could be released from the army for being transgender, but that changed during the Obama administration. In 2016, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that transgender people who were already serving in the army would be allowed to serve openly. And the military set July 1, 2017 as the date when transgender individuals would be allowed to enlist.
After Trump took office, however, his government postponed the enlistment date and called for further studies to determine whether allowing transgender individuals to serve would affect military readiness or effectiveness.
A few weeks later, Trump took military leaders by surprise, tweeting that the government would not accept or allow transsexual individuals to serve “in any position” in the military. “Our armed forces must be focused on a decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the enormous medical costs and disruptions that transgender people in the armed forces would incur,” he wrote.
It took almost two years, but after a long and complicated legal battle and additional revisions, the Department of Defense in April 2019 approved the new policy that fell short of a total ban, but prevented transgender troops and military recruits from transitioning to another sex and required that most individuals serve in their gender of birth.
According to this policy, currently serving transgender troops and anyone who signed an enlistment contract before the effective date could continue with hormonal treatment and gender transition plans if they had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
But after that date, no one with gender dysphoria who was taking hormones or transitioned to another gender was allowed to enlist. Troops that were already serving and were diagnosed with gender dysphoria were forced to serve at their birth sex and were prohibited from taking hormones or undergoing transitional surgery.
According to Trump policy, a service member can be dismissed based on a diagnosis of gender dysphoria if he or she is “unable or unwilling to adhere to all applicable standards, including those associated with their biological sex, or seek the transition to another genre. ” And he said the troops should be formally advised and given the chance to change their decision before the discharge is completed.
In 2019, about 14,700 soldiers on active duty and in reserves identified themselves as transgender, but not all sought treatment. Since July 2016, more than 1,500 military personnel have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria; as of February 1, 2019, 1,071 were currently in service. According to the Pentagon, the department spent about $ 8 million on transgender care between 2016 and 2019. The annual military health budget comes to $ 50 billion.
All four chiefs of service told Congress in 2018 that they saw no problems of discipline, morale or readiness for unity with transgender troops serving openly in the armed forces. But they also recognized that some commanders were spending too much time with transgender individuals who worked on medical requirements and other transitional issues.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.