President Donald Trump issued two orders to the Pentagon Monday, one declaring transgender service members as disqualified for military service, and the second abolishing all offices in the Department of Defense dealing with diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI.
The two orders were among a flurry of edicts signed by Trump Monday night, including a third aimed at the Pentagon that cleared the way for troops booted from the military over COVID-19 to be reinstated with back pay.
The transgender order is a return to a policy from Trump’s first term, when the Defense Department banned people with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from joining the military. The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota describes gender dysphoria as “a feeling of distress that can happen when a person’s gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth.” President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s that policy early in his term, but Trump reinstated it Monday with another executive order declaring that people diagnosed with gender dysphoria “cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”
Trump’s executive also orders directs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to update Pentagon policies accordingly.
Trump’s order called transgender identity a “falsehood” and indicated a lack of the morality required for military service.
“Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” Trump wrote. “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
The CEO of Out for National Security, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, and transgender professionals in the national security community, denounced Trump’s move, saying the executive order “will make America less safe.”
“Transgender servicemembers currently fulfill vital roles across the U.S. military,” Luke Schleusener said in a statement. “At a time of unprecedented threats around the world and recruitment challenges here at home, discharging these servicemembers will erode our military deterrence and cost American taxpayers by creating administrative confusion, harming unit cohesion, and worsening critical skill gaps.”
In a separate executive order signed on Monday, Trump directed the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security, under which the Coast Guard falls, to get rid of all DEI offices and programs.
This comes after Trump issued another executive order on his first day in office requiring the federal government to end all DEI programs. That prompted the Air Force to briefly remove videos about the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Air Force Service Pilots from its Basic Military Training curriculum, before reversing itself amid a public outcry.
On Monday, Trump ordered the secretaries of defense and homeland security to review the “leadership, curriculum, and instructors of the United States Service Academies and other defense academic institutions” to make sure they have eliminated all vestiges of DEI.
“In addition, these institutions shall be required to teach that America and its founding documents remain the most powerful force for good in human history,” Trump wrote.
The latest on Task & Purpose
- Here are the first Army and Marine Corps units heading to the border
- Two officers were fired for bucking their chain of command. Now they’re going to work at the Pentagon.
- Army and Air Force sweep out DEI-coded programs
- Army officers had to write haikus about Pacific theater of World War II during a leadership course
- Army recruits hoping for cav scout or armor jobs will have to wait for boot camp