“In my judgment,” said President Trump, “the previous Administration failed to identify a sufficient basis to conclude that terminating the Departments’ longstanding policy and practice would not hinder military effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit cohesion, or tax military resources, and there remain meaningful concerns that further study is needed to ensure that continued implementation of last year’s policy change would not have those negative effects.” Kathryn Blackhurst of LifeZette has the story:
President Donald Trump directed the military Friday to reinstate its ban on admitting transgender individuals and fully implement the longstanding policy that former President Barack Obama had reversed near the end of his administration.
The Obama administration lifted the transgender ban in 2016, with Defense Secretary Ash Carter saying at the time that there are an estimated 2500 active duty service members who are transgender. In a directive issued to the Department of Defense, the president ordered the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to refrain from recruiting transgender individuals and cease allocating military funds to cover sexual reassignment surgeries for transitioning service members, unless they had already begun medical procedures.