President Donald Trump signed a handful of executive orders Monday, reshaping the U.S. military to fit his MAGA values. One in particular revives his old quarrel with transgender military personnel.
While he tried to ban transgender military members during his first term, Trump is taking a different approach this time around by targeting trans members under the guise of “troop readiness.”
Per the executive order, the military has been “afflicted with radical gender ideology,” which is an indirect way of referring to transgender people without ever actually using the word “transgender.”
It goes on to state that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”
The language of the order gives power to the highly controversial Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to determine who falls into the category of someone who is ready or not ready for war.
Given Hegseth’s shiny record of bashing women and transgender people in military roles, it’s likely he will have no problem following in Trump’s transphobic footsteps.
The Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal are already gearing up to sue the Trump administration for the “cruel and dangerous” order.
“See you in court,” the two groups wrote in a collaborative Instagram post.
Protesters march against transphobia.
While Trump’s team claims those with “radical gender ideology” are a concern for “troop readiness,” Lambda Legal says otherwise.
“[The executive order] will harm readiness because it will remove servicemembers that the military has invested millions of dollars in training,” Lambda Legal Counsel and Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project Director Sasha Buchert told Daily Kos.
“Thousands of transgender troops are combat-tested, having been deployed to war zones and executed missions with distinction, many of whom are senior personnel with decades of experience. It will hurt unit cohesion because it will discriminate against otherwise qualified service members, sending the message that identity rather than merit is what is important and that some discrimination is acceptable,” Buchert added.
Historically, transgender people had to serve in the military secretly until President Barack Obama removed a ban, effectively allowing transgender people to serve openly. Trump reinstated the ban in his first term, but it mostly stayed tied up in the courts until it was overturned by President Joe Biden.
With Trump just more than a week into his second term, we are already seeing a slew of anti-trans measures taking place—which isn’t surprising considering the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in transphobic ads he ran during his presidential campaign.
In addition to his military ban, Trump signed an executive order declaring that the federal government will exclusively define sex as either female or male, rejecting the fact that people can be trans, nonbinary, intersex, or otherwise genderqueer. This order is expected to be challenged in court as well.
Attacks against the already vulnerable transgender community have been happening even before Trump started his second term. Not only are members of Congress attacking a colleague for being transgender, but GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson also snuck in a provision on the latest military defense spending bill banning gender-affirming care for military children.
Additionally, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on a similar case, United States v. Skrmetti, which will determine the constitutionality of banning medical care for transgender minors.
Needless to say, civil rights groups are gearing up for a long four years ahead.
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