Transgender ban

Next battleground for Trump transgender ban: Recruiting stations

Despite policy to bar all transgender troops, the Pentagon is under court order to open the ranks on Jan. 1.

By JACQUELINE KLIMAS

When Conner Callahan first tried to join the military he encountered widespread confusion among recruiters who didn’t know how to process a transgender volunteer.

“No one seemed to know what to tell me or what was happening,” recalled Callahan, a 29-year-old public safety officer in North Carolina. “I reached out to every branch, talked to different recruiters, and I heard everything from, ‘You can’t join,' to ‘Maybe, we’ll have to see.’”

That was before President Donald Trump declared last summer he was barring all transgender personnel and issued orders to overturn the Obama-era decision allowing them to serve openly and the Pentagon to begin taking in new recruits in 2017.

But when Callahan tries again after New Year’s he should get a much different reception. The Pentagon is now under a court order to begin accepting transgender recruits on Jan. 1. The deadline poses the biggest test yet for Trump’s ban, which remains bogged down in a series of legal challenges that Justice Department lawyers have failed repeatedly to fend off.

“I’ll be there at the door, hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst,” said Callahan, a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits who says he wanted to join the ranks since he was 13 and hopes to become a bomb disposal specialist.

An estimated 4,000 transgender troops were already serving when the ban was lifted under President Barack Obama and they were permitted to serve openly, according to a 2016 study by the government-funded RAND Corporation. Those still in uniform have also been permitted to remain while the Pentagon studies the issue and it winds its way through multiple federal courts.

In the meantime, advocates say they are aware of dozens of transgender men and women like Callahan interested in joining the ranks — including some they expect to swiftly challenge the Pentagon’s insistence that it will carry out the court order beginning next week.

The Defense Department had been preparing to accept transgender recruits — and was drafting special regulations to accommodate them — when Trump upended the issue in July. He tweeted without warning that “the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.”

That order came in a volley of tweets on the morning of July 26 that caught many by surprise — including the military leadership.

“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."

The reason, Trump declared, is “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.”

His declaration was widely condemned by lawmakers in both parties and has drawn exceedingly few vocal supporters.

Protests erupted in major cities shortly after the tweets and a group of 56 retired four-star admirals and generals warned the ban would “degrade readiness” and “cause significant disruptions.”

The commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Paul Zukunft, said he “will not break faith” with openly serving transgender members of the Coast Guard, which is part of the armed forces in wartime, in one of several public rebukes of the policy by top uniformed leaders.

Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz.) who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, also lent his support to transgender troops in uniform.

“There is no reason to force service members who are able to fight, train, and deploy to leave the military—regardless of their gender identity,” McCain said in a statement.

The president’s posts prompted many to wonder whether the commander in chief could essentially tweet new policies into law. But the Pentagon announced shortly after the tweets that it would not make any changes until Trump had followed the normal order of sending over formal guidance.

“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,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford said in an internal communication.

The White House sent over its formal guidance in August, but already some of the teeth of Trump's unequivocal stance were taken out. The written policy empowered Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to determine whether those who are currently serving will be kicked out and allowed the government to pay for gender reassignment surgery if deemed necessary to protect the health of service members already transitioning genders.

Mattis then established a panel of experts to study how to implement the president’s policy and maintain military readiness. He also announced that those currently serving could stay in uniform and in the interim even re-enlist.

In November, the Pentagon approved — and paid for — a gender reassignment surgery, demonstrating how the Obama-era policies remain in place.

Mattis is expected to deliver recommendations on how to implement Trump's ban in February, with the new policy taking effect on March 23, 2018.

It could be all for naught, however. The federal courts have been far harsher in their push back, dealing the Trump policy a series of what could ultimately be insurmountable setbacks.

Four federal courts in Maryland, Washington, D.C., California and Washington State have issued preliminary injunctions, temporarily stopping the Pentagon from implementing the ban while the legal proceedings unfold.

The four lawsuits were filed by GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders and the National Center for Lesbian Rights in Washington, D.C.; the American Civil Liberties Union and Covington and Burling LLP in Maryland; Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN in Washington and Equality California in California.

Each case is going through the process of discovery, whereby each side can gather evidence from the other. Multiple lawyers that have brought the suits against the Trump administration said they hope to have a final resolution by spring, with a possible appeals process to follow. Multiple experts said they predict the case to ultimately end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the meantime, the Pentagon has issued new guidance that potential recruits must be “stable” in their gender before they will be considered eligible.

Two federal appeals courts, meanwhile, ordered the government to follow the Jan. 1 deadline to open the ranks to transgender recruits, in D.C. and Virginia.

While the courts are considering the ban, Congress is also weighing legislation to block it by law. Bipartisan bills have been proposed in the House and Senate that would prevent the Defense Department from kicking out troops based solely on their gender identity.

But Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a California think tank focusing on gender studies, said he doesn’t expect any action on that legislation while the courts and the Pentagon are still hashing it out.

“I don’t think Congress wants to get involved if they don’t have to,” Belkin said.

Callahan, for his part, hopes for some more certainty sooner. He said Trump's original tweets made him feel “completely disregarded and unwanted by this country."

The Pentagon maintains that is not the case — at least for now. Maj. Dave Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesman, said that Defense Department “will process transgender applicants for military service on Jan. 1, 2018, as mandated by recent court decision.”

In preparation, the Pentagon recently issued new guidance that potential recruits must be “stable” in their gender before they will be considered eligible.

Callahan, a party to the lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal-OutServe SLDN, is eager to test that in his quest to become a explosive ordnance disposal officer.

“There’s too many bombs in this world," he explained in an interview. "If I can help get rid of them in a safe way and save somebody’s life, that really means a lot to me, to be making the world a little bit safer.”