US Moves to Discharge Transgender Soldiers from Military

The United States will remove transgender troops from the military unless they obtain a waiver on a case-by-case basis, the Pentagon announced in a Wednesday memo.

The memo became public on February 26 as part of a court filing in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s late January executive order aimed at barring military service by transgender personnel.

“Service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria will be processed for separation from military service,” the memo said.

These troops may be “considered for a waiver on a case-by-case basis, provided there is a compelling government interest in retaining the service member that directly supports warfighting capabilities,” it said.

To obtain such a waiver, troops must show that they have never attempted to transition, as well as demonstrate “36 consecutive months of stability in the service member’s sex without clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.”

Another Pentagon memo issued earlier this month barred transgender individuals from joining the military and halted gender transition treatments for those already serving.

The latest memo also states that “applicants for military service… who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are disqualified for military service,” as are those with “a history of cross-sex hormone therapy or sex reassignment or genital reconstruction surgery as treatment for gender dysphoria.”

Disqualified applicants can also obtain a waiver if there is a “compelling government interest” in them joining the military and they are “willing and able to adhere to all applicable standards, including the standards associated with the applicant’s s£x.”

Transgender Americans have faced shifting policies on military service in recent years, with Democratic administrations working to allow them to serve openly, while Trump has repeatedly sought to exclude them from the ranks.

The U.S. military lifted a ban on transgender troops in 2016 during Democrat Barack Obama’s second term as president.

Under that policy, transgender troops already serving were allowed to do so openly, and transgender recruits were set to be accepted starting July 1, 2017.

However, the first Trump administration postponed that date to 2018 before deciding to reverse the policy entirely.

Trump’s controversial restrictions on transgender military service, which underwent revisions in response to various court challenges, eventually took effect in April 2019 after a prolonged legal battle that reached the nation’s highest court.

Trump’s Democratic successor, Joe Biden, moved to reverse the restrictions just days after taking office in 2021, stating that all qualified Americans should be able to serve.

After returning to office in January, Trump issued an executive order executive order that again took aim at transgender troops, saying: “Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”