Orangutans bans....

Trump bans transgender individuals from U.S. military service

The move is a reversal of an Obama-era policy put in place last June.

By LOUIS NELSON

The U.S. military will no longer allow transgender individuals to serve “in any capacity,” President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Wednesday morning.

“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 wrote online, breaking his message up into multiple posts. "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.”

The announcement represents a reversal of an Obama-era policy established last June by former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who shifted Pentagon policy to allow transgender troops to serve openly. Last month, Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that the Pentagon would delay his predecessor’s order through the remainder of 2017 in order to review the impact of the shift.

When he first announced in June of last year that the military would allow transgender individuals to serve openly, Carter declared that “Americans who want to serve and can meet our standards should be afforded the opportunity to compete to do so.” He cited RAND Corporation research showing that roughly 4,000 transgender individuals were serving in the military as either active duty service members or reservists at the time and that there would be “minimal readiness impacts from allowing transgender service members to serve openly.”

In announcing a delay of the new transgender policy’s full implementation last month, a Pentagon spokeswoman said the Department of Defense would review its effect on “the readiness and lethality of our forces.”

Trump’s announcement is the most recent in a string of moves that opponents have said curtail the rights of transgender individuals. Last February, Trump rescinded protections instituted by former President Barack Obama that allowed transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms at their schools that corresponds with their gender identity.

The moves seemingly contradict a campaign promise Trump made last June, also on Twitter, where he wrote “thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary [Clinton] brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.”

The president’s more open stance on transgender issues during the campaign helped, at least in part, to earn him the support of perhaps the most well-known transgender celebrity, Caitlyn Jenner, who has said she voted for the president last November and delivered a speech at an event that coincided with the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

In an interview last summer with NBC’s “Today” show, Trump said that “there have been very few complaints” about a system in which individuals “use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate.” He said in the same interview that Jenner could use whatever bathroom she wanted inside Trump Tower, an offer the celebrity took him up on a week later in a video posted to Facebook.