WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden will issue executive order to reverse Pentagon policy that largely bans transgender people from entering the military, spilling over the ban ordered by President Donald Trump in a tweet during his freshman year of mandate, a person informs the decision on The Associated Press.
Biden was expected to overturn Trump’s policy in his first days in office. The White House could announce the move as early as Monday, according to the person briefed on the decision who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the order.
The move to reverse the policy is backed by Biden’s recently confirmed Secretary of Defense, retired Army General Lloyd Austin, who spoke of the need to revoke it during his confirmation hearing in the Senate last week. .
“I support the president’s plan or plan to overturn the ban,” Austin said. “If you are fit and qualified to serve and can maintain the standards, you should be allowed to serve.”
The decision comes as Biden plans to focus on equity issues that he says continue to take into account all aspects of American life. Prior to his inauguration, Biden’s transition team released a note from Ron Klain, now head of the White House cabinet, outlining Biden’s plan to use his first full week as president. ” to promote equity and support communities of color and other underserved communities. ”
The move to repeal the transgender ban is also the latest example that Biden used the executive branch in his early days as president to dismantle Trump’s legacy. His first actions include orders to overturn the Trump administration’s ban on travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries, stop construction of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and launch an initiative to advance racial equity.
Biden also plans to hold a swearing-in ceremony Monday at the White House for Austin, which became the country’s first black defense secretary.
It was unclear how quickly the Pentagon could implement a new policy and whether it would take some time to find out details.
Until a few years ago, members of the service could be discharged from the military for transgender, but that changed during the Obama administration. In 2016, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced that transgender people already serving in the military would be allowed to serve openly. And the military set July 1, 2017 as the date when transgender people would be allowed to enlist.
After Trump took office, however, his administration delayed the enlistment date and called for an additional study to determine whether allowing service to transgender people would affect military readiness or effectiveness.
A few weeks later, Trump took military leaders by surprise and tweeted that the government would not accept or allow transgender people to serve “in any capacity” in the military. “Our military must focus on a decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the enormous medical costs and disruption that transgender people would entail in the military,” he wrote.
It took almost two years, but after a long and complicated legal battle and additional revisions, the Department of Defense approved in April 2019 the new policy that was below the total ban, but banned transgender troops and to military recruits the transition to the opposite sex and required most people to serve in their birth gender.
Under this policy, currently serving transgender troops and anyone who had signed a enlistment contract before the effective date could continue with hormone treatment plans and gender transition if they had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
But after that date, no one with gender dysphoria who was taking hormones or had switched to another gender could not enlist. Troops that were already serving and diagnosed with gender dysphoria were required to serve in the gender of their birth and were prohibited from taking hormones or transitional surgery.
According to Trump’s policy, a member of the service may be discharged on the basis of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria if “he or she cannot or does not want to meet all applicable standards, including standards associated with his or her biological sex, or seeks the transition to another gender. ”And he said troops should be formally advised and given the opportunity to change their decision before the discharge ends.
As of 2019, an estimated 14,700 in active duty and on-reserve staff are identified as transgender, but not all are seeking treatment. Since July 2016, more than 1,500 members of the service have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria; as of February 1, 2019, there were 1,071 current servers. According to the Pentagon, the department spent about $ 8 million on transgender care between 2016 and 2019. The military’s annual health care budget exceeds $ 50 billion.
The four service chiefs told Congress in 2018 that they had seen no issues of discipline, morale or readiness for unity with the transgender troops who openly served in the military. But they also acknowledged that some commanders spent a lot of time with transgender individuals working with medical requirements and other transition issues.
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Aamer Madhani, an Associated Press writer, contributed to this report.