Rights activists decry Trump's reversal of Obama-era decision to allow trans people to openly serve in the US military.

President Donald Trump has signed a memorandum that directs the US military to not accept transgender individuals as recruits and halts the use of government funds for sex-reassignment surgeries for active personnel unless the process is already underway.

The memo, released by the White House on Friday, laid out in more detail a ban on transgender individuals serving in the US armed forces that Trump announced via Twitter last month.

The announcement reversed a policy shift started under his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

In the memorandum, Trump directed the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to stop using government funds for sex-reassignment procedures unless it is necessary "to protect the health of an individual who has already begun a course of treatment to reassign his or her sex".

The order requires Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to determine in the coming months how to handle transgender individuals currently serving in the military using criteria including "military effectiveness and lethality," budget constraints and law.

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A White House official who briefed reporters about the memo declined to specify whether transgender individuals who are currently active in the military could continue to serve based on such criteria.

The official said Trump decided the Obama administration had not identified a sufficient basis for changing what was then long-standing policy on transgender troops.

The memo called on Mattis to submit his plan on how to implement the changes by February 21 of next year.

'Nothing less than a purge'

Trump's decision appealed to some in his conservative political base while creating uncertainty for thousands of transgender service members, many of whom came out after the Pentagon said in 2016 it would allow transgender people to serve openly.

According to the National Centre for Transgender Equality, there are about 15,000 transgender people currently serving in the US military.

The change drew swift criticism from advocates of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.

"The President's order to remove transgender service members from the United States armed forces and deny them healthcare is nothing less than a purge," Matt Thorn, executive director of OutServe-SLDN, a group dedicated to LGBT equality in the military, said in a statement.

Jennifer Levi, an official at the gay rights group GLAD (GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said that the US military "is strongest when all people who are fit to serve have the opportunity to do so".

"This unprecedented policy amounts to a purge of qualified, contributing troops, and will serve only to undermine unit cohesion and weaken military readiness."

Others online, including Chelsea Manning, a transgender army private who was jailed for one of the largest leaks of classified documents in US history, also criticised Trump's move, calling it a "shameful" and "hateful". </s> WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday stopped funding for sex-reassignment treatment for transgender people currently in the military and barred the Pentagon from accepting any more transgender people into the services.

The president signed a memo giving new guidance to his previously-tweeted ban on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military, according to a senior White House official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

Trump signed the memo, the details of which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, on Friday and directed the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to stop funding of sex-reassignment procedures and deny entry of transgender individuals into the military.

Openly transgender individuals will be barred until the Secretary of Defense "provides a recommendation to the contrary that I find convincing," Trump's memo reads.

The Trump administration official was unable to answer questions about whether the estimated thousands of transgender service members currently serving would be allowed to remain in the military.

The administration's guidance gives Defense Secretary James Mattis some leeway when considering whether individual transgender service members would be allowed to continue to serve. The defense secretary would be able to consider military effectiveness, unit cohesion, budget restraints and other factors, the administration official said.

The Pentagon and Department of Defense have six months to develop an implementation plan.

Asked if at the end of the six-month period it would be possible that transgender people already serving will continue, the official said the administration didn't have "anything to say beyond the policy enunciated in the memo."

Trump first articulated his unexpected and abrupt policy change about transgender service members in a series of tweets last month, saying:

"After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow...Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our 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. Thank you."

Trump campaigned as a friend to the LGBTQ community, even praising the audience at the Republican National Convention last summer when they cheered his mention of the group. But even after the president's decision to bar transgender people from the military — a policy blasted by LGBTQ groups — the White House is still defending Trump's credentials as a friend to the community.

"The president is a president for all Americans," the senior administration official said Friday.

The basis for the Friday directive, the official added, is "national security concerns." </s> Five transgender members of the U.S. military including Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans sued President Donald Trump on Wednesday, challenging his ban on transgender people serving in the armed forces.

Trump said on Twitter on July 26 that the U.S. government "will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity" in the military, a reversal of Pentagon policy that the lawsuit said was made without consulting senior military commanders.

The surprise announcement, citing healthcare costs and unit disruption, appealed to some in Trump's conservative political base but created uncertainty for thousands of transgender service members, many of whom came out after the Pentagon said in 2016 it would allow transgender people to serve openly.

Trump's tweets appeared to dismiss findings from a RAND Corporation study commissioned by the Pentagon that found allowing transgender people to serve would "cost little and have no significant impact on unit readiness."

The White House did not immediately respond to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

The service members suing the president are three U.S. Army soldiers, one U.S. Air Force airman and one member of the U.S. Coast Guard who are active duty.

All have come out as transgender to their commanding officers but are anonymous in the lawsuit, named only as Jane Doe, for fear of retribution, said Jennifer Levi, a lawyer from GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. The group filed the lawsuit along with the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it was preparing its own lawsuit.

The lawsuit said Trump's tweets violate the rights of the service members to due process and equal protection under the law. It asks the court to declare Trump's directive as unconstitutional and to issue injunctions to stop it.

The defendants are listed as Trump, Defense Secretary James Mattis and other military leaders including Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dunford said in a memo a day after Trump's tweets that there would be no change in policy until Mattis received an official order from the president.

That order has yet to be issued.

"In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect," Dunford said.

Lawyer Levi said the plaintiffs, some of whom are near retirement, need not wait for an official policy because the tweets alone created uncertainty about their futures. </s> WASHINGTON -- Five members of the U.S. armed forces filed a lawsuit Wednesday against President Donald Trump and top military brass, seeking to stop them from banning transgender people from serving "in any capacity."

With the lawsuit, which seeks to prevent the president from reversing a policy put in place by President Barack Obama's administration, a federal judge is once again being asked to referee a clash in the country's escalating culture war. Since Trump took office in January, the administration has engaged in legal battles over shifts in policy involving immigration and gay rights.

The service members, who are suing anonymously, are already members of the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard. They say they disclosed their gender orientation relying on the existing policy that permits them to serve openly.

The shift announced July 26 by Trump on Twitter violates the U.S. Constitution, the service members said in a complaint filed Wednesday in federal court in Washington. The change hasn't been implemented.

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"We do not comment on active or pending litigation," the White House press office said in an email. Defense Department spokesman Dana White said in a statement that the Pentagon is still awaiting formal guidance from the White House.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a named defendant in the case, previously acknowledged the uncertainty engendered by the president's announcement.

"I know there are questions about yesterday's announcement on the transgender policy by the president," Dunford said July 27. "There will be no modifications to the current policy until the president's direction has been received by the secretary of defense and the secretary has issued implementation guidance."

The lead plaintiff, who identifies herself as Jane Doe 1, has submitted a prospective letter of resignation to the Coast Guard, stating she'd rather walk away voluntarily than be terminated because of her gender, according to the complaint. Doe 1 said she would withdraw the resignation if the administration abandoned its plan.

Three other Jane Doe plaintiffs serve in the U.S. Army, including Doe 3, who has already served in Afghanistan and "expects to be deployed to Iraq soon," according to the filing. The fifth plaintiff is a 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran who has served two tours of duty in Iraq.

"Jane Doe 5's livelihood depends on her military service. Separation from the military would have devastating financial and emotional consequences for her," according to the complaint.

Trump's contemplated reversal would violate the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection and has no rational basis, the plaintiffs allege. It would also deprive them of their military careers without due process, according to the lawsuit.

Treatment of transgender people has become a flash point as social conservatives in some states push to require students and sometimes adults to use school and public restrooms corresponding to their gender at birth.

In three tweets last month, Trump outlined his reasoning for reversing the Obama policy on transgender individuals in the military.

"After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on the decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you," he said in his tweets.

The Military Times pointed out that the cost of providing Viagra to members of the armed forces is at least 10 times the costs associated with gender reassignment.

The service members' lawsuit was filed by attorneys from the Washington-based WilmerHale law firm, Boston-based Foley Hoag LLP and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Also named as defendants are Secretary of Defense James Mattis, acting Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy and Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson.

"Besides the harm to the service members and people who want to enlist, what's most upsetting about this is for the transgender kids out there in society, for their president to say that they are inherently a disruption, that they shouldn't be able to serve," said Jon Davidson, a director of the advocacy group Lambda Legal, which isn't involved in the service members' lawsuit. "That's a terrible message to be sending to young people."

Information for this article was contributed by Erik Larson of Bloomberg News. </s> Two LGBT organizations have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump over his recently announced decision to reinstate a ban on transgender individuals openly serving in the U.S. armed forces.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights and the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders filed the suit on Wednesday in district court on behalf of five transgender military personnel.

"Execution of the president's directive will result in an end to service by openly transgender service members and has already resulted in immediate, concrete injury to Plaintiffs by unsettling and destabilizing plaintiffs' reasonable expectation of continued service," the complaint claims.

"The directive to reinstate a ban on open service by transgender people violates both the Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution," the lawsuit states.

NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter said in a statement that Trump's ban "has created a tidal wave of harms that have already been felt throughout our armed services."

"Transgender service members have been blindsided by this shift and are scrambling to deal with what it means for their futures and their families," Minter argued.

Last year, former President Barack Obama began a policy to gradually allow for transgendered individuals to openly serve in the military and for taxpayers to pay for their gender reassignment surgeries and related medical treatments.

While transgender military personnel were allowed to serve openly with the new policy, Obama had delayed implementation of allowing transgender people to enlist until July 1, 2017.

Top generals requested a delay in that policy, which was approved by Secretary of Defense James Mattis on June 30. The new deadline was set for Jan. 1, 2018.

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Paul Selva told the Senate Armed Services Committee in July that the new measures could have "unintended consequences."

"Our decision to delay the accessions of transgender individuals into the services was largely based on a disagreement on the science of how mental healthcare and hormone therapy for transgender individuals would help solve their medical issues that are associated with gender dysphoria," Selva said.

In late July, Trump posted a series of statements on Twitter saying that he was reversing the Obama-era policy.

"After consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow ... transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military," Trump tweeted.

"[Our military] cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail."

In response, U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sent a message to military leadership clarifying that Trump's Twitter posts do not change their current policies.

"I know there are questions about yesterday's announcement on the transgender policy by the president," Dunford said, as reported by Politico.

"There will be no modifications to the current policy until the president's direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the secretary has issued implementation guidance."

Until official means are made to change the policy, Dunford added, "we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect." </s> In this Aug. 3, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. AP Photo

Two LGBT-rights organizations filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday challenging President Donald Trump's tweets declaring he wants a ban on transgender people serving in the military.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington on behalf of five transgender service members with nearly 60 years of combined military service.

Transgender people have been allowed to service openly in the military since June 2016. Trump, in a series of tweets on July 26, announced that he planned to end that policy.

The government "will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military," he tweeted, contending that their service entailed "tremendous medical costs and disruption."

The lawsuit, filed by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, says such a ban is unconstitutional, denying transgender service members equal protection and due process.

Dozens hold "Resist" signs near a Times Square military recruitment center to show their anger at Trump's decision to reinstate a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military on July 26, 2017, in New York. Spencer Platt / Getty Images file

Lawyers handling the lawsuit said they hoped the court would move swiftly to prevent a ban from taking effect, given the uncertainty that transgender service members now face in regard to their livelihoods and retirement benefits.

"The damage is happening now," said Jennifer Levi, Director of GLAD's Transgender Rights Project. "These service members were told in June 2016 they could come out and continue to openly serve."

The five plaintiffs — who were not identified in the lawsuit — serve in the Air Force, the Coast Guard and the Army. Their years of service range from three years to two decades, and include tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment.

Named in the suit, along with Trump, are Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other national security officials.

When Trump first tweeted his plan, Dunford said the military would not act on the tweets until a formal order to do so was issued by the president, who is also the commander-in-chief of the military. But a team of military lawyers has been pulled together to figure out how to handle the matter.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it told the White House on Tuesday that it intends to sue, and requested that relevant documents be preserved in preparation for the lawsuit. </s> President Donald Trump is expected to announce Thursday his formal bar on the military recruitment of people who wish to live as members of the opposite sex.

The written directive implements his tweeted July decision against hiring sex-switching recruits and reinforces his earlier legal rejection of the revolutionary transgender ideology.

That ideology claims that each person’s legal sex is determined by their so-called voluntary “gender identity,” not by their actual biology.

Trump’s formal rejection of former President Barack Obama’s pro-transgender policy will help Americans preserve the nation’s myriad laws and civic practices already built around the existence of the two equal, different and complementary sexes. Those laws and practices are under assault as progressive activists and well-funded lawyers try to persuade legislators and judges to impose the transgender ideology on states, cities, schools, and on every American adult and child.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

The White House memo … directs the Pentagon to deny admittance to transgender individuals and to stop spending on medical treatment regimens for those currently serving, according to U.S. officials familiar with the document … [Defense Secretary James] Mattis under the new policy is expected to consider “deployability”—the ability to serve in a war zone, participate in exercises or live for months on a ship—as the primary legal means to decide whether to separate service members from the military, the officials said… The Pentagon’s military service chiefs hold a range of views on social issues, including on open service by gays and women in combat. But there was no push from senior leaders to re-establish the ban on transgender service members, officials have said.

The Wall Street Journal report did not say if the Pentagon would fully reverse Obama’s policy of allowing people to switch their claimed sex in military personnel records. That policy marked his official acceptance of the transgender ideology’s demand that government must force Americans to accept every person’s opposite-sex “gender identity,” even without discrete medical treatment, opposite-sex clothing, or cosmetic genital surgery.

Transgender activists are protesting Trump’s two-sexes policy by arguing that individuals who try to live as members of the other sex can also be effective soldiers. For example, a statement from the director of the pro-transgender Palm Center, Aaron Helkin focused on the individual rights of people who want to live as members of the opposite sex;

Helkin also argued that progressives agree the progressive plan would not hurt military readiness:

Former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and General Martin Dempsey issued statements in support of our nation’s transgender troops, and fifty-six retired Generals and Admirals concluded that banning transgender troops would ’cause significant disruptions’ and would ‘degrade readiness even more than the failed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.’ These distinguished military leaders are correct. Transgender troops have been serving openly in the U.S. military for more than a year, and have been widely praised by Commanders. Eighteen foreign militaries allow transgender personnel to serve, and none have reported any compromise to readiness. All available research, including scholarly publications by the RAND Corporation as well as retired General and Flag Officers, has reached the same conclusion: inclusive policy for LGBT personnel promotes readiness.

In contrast, supporters of the normal two-sexes policies say transgenderism would disrupt morale and readiness by forcing biologically-intact men and women to share bathrooms, showers and living facilities.

For example, military training slides now say that male and female soldiers must provide “dignity and respect” to opposite-sex “transgender” soldiers who enter their bathrooms and showers. However, “Transgender Soldiers are not required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not ‘match’ other Soldiers,” according to the slides, which were first leaked by TheFederalist.com.

Also, people who wish to live as members of the opposite sex adopt often-disabling and expensive medical procedures. For example, men who wish to live as women usually take a diet of medications to reduce their natural testosterone levels, which are vital in building and repairing muscles. A person’s decision to try to switch sexes is also considered a mental condition, labeled euphemistically as “gender dysphoria.” The high cost of extra medical treatment for sex-switching soldiers has been touted as a reason to oppose Obama’s policy.

Supporters of the two-sex policy also point out that many civic institutions are being damaged by progressives legislatures and judiciaries which require Americans to accept other persons’ claims to have switched sex, even when the claimants have not undergone any cosmetic surgery. Progressives also argue that people have an intangible male or female “gender” which is not linked to their male or female biology — despite overwhelming evidence that each person’s character is shaped by their male or female body, not by a so-far undetected “gender.”

These “gender identity” claims have a growing impact on the operation of different-sex bathrooms, shelters for battered women, sports leagues for girls, hiking groups for boys, K-12 curricula, university speech codes, religious freedoms, free speech, the social status of women, parents’ rights in childrearing, practices to help teenagers, women’s expectations of beauty, culture and civic society, scientific research, prison safety, civic ceremonies, school rules, men’s sense of masculinity, law enforcement, and children’s sexual privacy.

The gender vs. two-sexes issue is being weighed by state and federal courts, and the Supreme Court is being pressured by progressives to impose their one-size-fits-all transgender ideology on the nation. Trump’s opposition to Obama’s approval for the ideology creates a major obstacle for that strategy, especially because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has also shifted Justice Department policies. Sessions has directed agency lawyers to discard Obama-era claims that the transgender ideology is supported by recent reevaluations of long-standing laws.

Polls show that roughly one-quarter of Americans support the progressive claim that biological sex is less important that chosen “gender identity,” despite intense media pressure in favor of the pro-transgender, anti-sexes campaign.

There are very few “transgender” people. For example, advocates say from 1,320 t0 11,000 people in the military are trying fully or partly to live like members of the other sex, within the military population of 1.3 million full-time soldiers, sailors, marines and air force personnel. Fewer than o.3 percent of Americans wish to live as members of the opposite sex.

Trump’s formal opposition to the transgender ideology is pushing Democrats to make their unpopular transgender ideology an issue in the 2018 elections. However, Obama has said twice that his 2016 support for the ideology helped contribute to Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the presidential election.

Trump’s support for the two sexes has been applauded by conservatives. In July, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, applauded Trump’s policy, saying: “I do think it helps the average American to stand up and say what is obvious [and] that is refreshing … the overwhelming majority of Americans in most surveys I’ve seen do not think the federal government should be blurring the lines between the two biological sexes.” </s> Trump Signs Memo Implementing Ban On Transgender People Enlisting In The Military

President Trump has signed a memo implementing his new policy on transgender people serving in the armed forces.

A senior White House official told reporters that no transgender individuals will be allowed to join the armed services unless and until the secretary of defense and secretary of homeland security recommend otherwise.

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps are part of the Department of Defense. The Coast Guard, also covered by the new policy, is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

The memo halts use of all Defense and Homeland Security resources for sex change surgery for those now serving. The only exception is for transgender service members already in treatment. This will become effective March 23, 2018, to give time for officials to develop an implementation policy.

The change in policy that would have allowed transgender people to join the military had been announced by former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter but never implemented, unlike the policy change that allowed current transgender military personnel to serve openly.

The policy prohibiting transgender individuals serving in the military is restored by the memo. For transgender service members already serving, the memo directs the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to determine what to do with them based on how their continued service affects military effectiveness, lethality, resources and unit cohesion.

The memo calls for an implementation plan to be submitted to the president by March 23, 2018. </s> The White House will soon issue guidance to the Pentagon on how it should proceed with implementing President Donald Trump's ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

According to the news outlet, the White House is expected to send the guidance in the coming days, which would mark the first official instruction from the White House on how the United States military is supposed to act on Trump's announcement on Twitter last month that openly serving transgender troops would no longer be allowed to serve in the armed forces.

Trump's tweet signaled a reversal from an Obama-era policy enacted last year that lifted the ban on openly serving transgender troops and would have made the U.S. government responsible for covering gender reassignment treatment and procedures deemed medically necessary for transgender service members.

Sources familiar with the two-and-a-half-page guidance told WSJ that the docuement "directs the Pentagon to deny admittance to transgender individuals" and "stop spending on medical treatment regimens for those currently serving."

Additionally, the sources explained that the memo informs Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis that the ban is to be fully implemented in six months.

Trump announced the plan to ban transgender military service members as social conservative advocacy groups called for an end to the Obama-era transgender troop policy, suggesting that the policy weakens military readiness and creates privacy issues.

But after Trump tweeted his vow to ban transgender individuals from the military, LGBT activists and supporters were quick to voice their criticism of the transgender ban.

"Transgender people are just as deployable as other service members," Sue Fulton, an LGBT activist and former president of the LGBT military organization Sparta, told the outlet. "Other service members may undergo procedures when they are at home base, just as other service members schedule shoulder surgery or gall bladder surgery."

A Change.org petition calling on Trump to allow transgender individuals to serve in the military has amassed more than 225,000 supporters.

"This is extremely disgraceful and an insult to all those who have already given their lives for this country. This is not equality, and this is not 'supporting the LGBT community,' as he said he does. This is utterly transphobic," the petition reads. "Many people who served are going to be left jobless, and many others will no longer be able to fulfill their dreams. This is not okay, and this should not be legal. Trans people are still people."

Earlier this month, Trump defended his vow to ban transgender individuals from military service, saying during a news conference at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., that he was doing a "great favor" for the military.

"And I think I'm doing a lot of people a favor by just coming out and saying it. As you know, it has been a very complicated issue for the military," the president said. "It's been a very confusing issue for the military and I think I am doing the military a great favor."

Following Trump's tweet, a group of retired flag-rank military officers that included Family Research Council Executive Vice President Jerry Boykin sent Trump a letter, expressing their gratitude and argued that the Obama-era policy would have been costly.

"Even if it can be scientifically demonstrated that gender reassignment procedures medically benefit some individuals, there will still be concerns about the deployability of these individuals," the letter reads. "DoD guidelines require that those serving in the military be 'medically adaptable to the military environment without the necessity of geographic area limitations.' However, both hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery result in the need for specialized medical care which will not be available in all geographic locations."

"Aside from the time lost due to the non-deployability of the person transitioning, one must also consider the time taken away from commanding officers for transgender case management. The detailed assessment and management of these complex cases by commanders would have been substantial," the letter continues. "Needless to say, that is time not being spent training or thinking about how to engage and defeat our enemies in combat. The shifting of CO time would have been a real detriment to military effectiveness."
President Donald Trump issues a presidential memorandum that stops funding of sex reassignment procedures for military personnel, and that denies entry of transgender individuals into the military. President Trump announced this policy change via Twitter in late July. Two LGBT rights organizations filed a federal lawsuit two weeks ago arguing this policy change is unconstitutional because it denies transgender service members equal protection and due process.