The Associated Press
WASHINGTON–President Donald Trump said yesterday he wants transgender people barred from serving in the U.S. military “in any capacity,” citing “tremendous medical costs and disruption.”
Trump’s announcement on Twitter would reverse the effort under former President Barack Obama to open the armed services to transgender people.
He did not say what would happen to transgender troops already in the military.
The president tweeted he was making his announcement after consulting with “generals and military experts,” but did not name any.
Trump said the military “must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory, and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered little clarity about the policy at a press briefing.
Asked what will happen to transgender troops currently serving, she replied the Department of Defence and the White House will work together “as implementation takes place and is done so lawfully.”
She did not provide a timeline.
Sanders described the move as a “military decision,” saying Trump was concerned the current policy is “expensive and disruptive” and “erodes military readiness and military cohesion.”
She added the secretary of defence was notified yesterday after Trump made the decision.
At the Pentagon, members of the staff of Defence Secretary Jim Mattis appeared to have been caught unaware by Trump’s tweets.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, referred questions to the White House.
In a brief written statement, Davis said the Pentagon is working with the White House to “address” what he called “the new guidance” from the president.
He noted the Pentagon will provide revised guidance to Defence Department officials “in the near future.”
Members of Congress also seemed caught by surprise.
Asked if he was notified in advance about the announcement, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., replied, “No. I read about it when you reported it.”
Transgender service members have been able to serve openly in the military since last year, when former Defence Secretary Ash Carter ended the ban.
Since last Oct. 1, they have been able to receive medical care and start formally changing their gender identifications in the Pentagon’s personnel system.
Carter also gave the services until July 1 to develop policies to allow people already identifying as transgender to newly join the military.
Mattis announced earlier this month that he was giving military chiefs another six months to conduct a review to determine if allowing transgender individuals to enlist in the armed services would affect the “readiness or lethality” of the force.
Already, there are as many as 250 service members in the process of transitioning to their preferred genders or who have been approved to formally change gender within the Pentagon’s personnel system, according to several defence officials.
The Pentagon has refused to release any data on the number of transgender troops currently serving.
A Rand Corp. study last year estimated about 2,450 transgender people in active military, out of about 1.3 million troops.
On cost, the study said only a subset would seek gender transition related treatment, estimating that health-care costs would increase by between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually, or a 0.04 percent to 0.13 percent increase in spending on active military.
The issue of transgender troops was debated recently in the GOP-led House, which narrowly rejected a measure that would have forbidden the Pentagon from paying for gender transition surgeries and hormone therapy.
Supporters saw the measure as an opportunity to roll back what they called Obama’s social engineering of the armed forces.
But Democrats criticized the proposal as bigoted and unconstitutional, and they won enough Republican support to block it.
