United States President Donald Trump, has signed an executive order, banning transgender from serving in the military in a move to reshape the armed force.
Trump said that any military personnel whose gender identity differs from their biological sex “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle and is therefore deemed unfit to be in service.
The president, who signed this order while aboard Air Force One as he flew to Washington DC from Florida yesterday, said transgenders are both medically and morally unfit to serve.
He wrote “Military personnel whose gender identity differs from their biological sex “conflicts in one’s personal life, adding that they fail to meet the “rigorous standards necessary for military service”.
Speaking to House Republicans at his Doral, Florida, property earlier, the president said he will get the “transgender ideology the hell out of our military” which he says will ensure the U.S. has the world’s most lethal fighting force.
This order signed with three others to transform the military came four days after Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, was sworn in as secretary of defense.
Hegseth has long stated he planned to implement major cultural changes to the military, including ending DEI practices and removing “woke” service members.
He had told reporters during his swearing-in ceremony that there are “more executive orders coming”.
According to him, “Today, there are more executive orders coming, on removing DEI inside the Pentagon, reinstating troops who were pushed out because of Covid mandates, iron dome for America — this is happening quickly, and as the secretary of defense, it’s an honor to salute smartly as I did as a junior officer and now as the secretary of defense to ensure these orders are complied with rapidly and quickly”.
Trump had banned transgender Americans from serving in the military in 2017 during his first administration, but then-President Joe Biden issued an order in 2021 repealing the ban.
Hours after being sworn in for his second term last week, Trump signed an order revoking the Biden administration’s 2021 move to allow transgender members to serve.
However, the order Trump announced he had signed goes even further, one of the officials said, and outlines new military standards regarding gender pronouns and states that mental and physical readiness requires transgender service members be banned from the military.
