WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump has signed a presidential memo banning transgender people from enrolling in the military.
The presidential memorandum also bans the Department of Defense from using its resources to provide medical treatment regimens for transgender individuals currently serving in the military.
“Trump also directed the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to determine how to address transgender individuals currently serving based on military effectiveness and lethality, unitary cohesion, budgetary constraints, applicable law, and all factors that may be relevant,” CNN reported citing a White House official.
Trump’s memo instructs Secretary of Defense James Mattis to further explore how to handle transgender people currently serving in the armed forces and orders the Pentagon to stop paying for gender reassignment surgeries, except in cases that are already in progress to “protect the health of an individual.”
The White House official who briefed reporters on the memo declined to say whether current transgender troops would be allowed to remain in the military under those policy guidelines.
The memo also requests that the Pentagon develop an implementation plan for the ban by Feb 21, 2018, to be put in place on March 23, 2018, the reports said.
Last month, Trump wrote on Twitter that transgender troops could no longer serve “in any capacity," abruptly announcing to reinstate the ban.
The move reversed an Obama administration policy implemented in July 2016 that allowed transgender people to serve openly in the military.
Trump’s transgender ban policy faces intense opposition from top Republican senators, dozens of retired generals and admirals and advocacy groups.