By Dan Lamothe, Missy Ryan, Alex Horton · The Washington Post (c) 2025
President Donald Trump on Monday night issued an executive order targeting transgender service members and an array of other people, saying that the U.S. military has been “afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists” and that “many mental and physical health conditions are incompatible with active duty.”
The list of conditions identified couldaffect tens of thousands of people depending on how it is interpreted. It cites diagnoses “that require substantial medication or medical treatment to bipolar and related disorders, eating disorders, suicidality, and prior psychiatric hospitalization.”
The order calls for the Pentagon to adopt updated policies on the medical standards required for military service. It also takes aim at transgender people in personal terms, accusing them of living in conflict “with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
“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,” it adds.
The order builds on a previous directive, issued hours after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, overturning a 2021 Biden administration measure that permitted transgender troops to serve openly, which reversed an earlier ban from Trump’s first term in office. The new executive order does not immediately ban transgender individuals from serving, but it directs the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard, to revise medical standards and submit a report to the president outlining steps to comply with the directive.
While the Defense Department does not keep track of the number of transgender personnel across the force, the latest shiftin the long-running policy back-and-forth could impact thousands of service members. It also represents one aspect of a far-reaching Trump administration effort to roll back diversity initiatives across the government.
Trump signed the new transgender order along with others calling for the reinstatement of troops who were discharged during the Biden administration for refusing coronavirus vaccines; the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion offices in the Defense Department; and the creation of an “Iron Dome for America,” Trump’s vision for expanded missile defense.
Newly confirmed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former National Guard soldier who hassaid that “being transgendered in the military causes complications and differences,” promised in his first remarks to reporters at the Pentagon on Monday that he would ensure implementation of Trump’s priorities, which also include ordering the military to guard the southern border.
“This is happening quickly,” he said. “Our job is lethality and readiness and warfighting.”
In a November podcast, Hegseth said personnel receiving medication related to gender transitions would be unable to serve effectively.
Advocates for transgender people have said that there may be as many as 15,000 in the U.S. military. A 2016 Defense Department survey found that about 9,000 identified as such. Both figures represent less than 1 percent of the 2 million people who serve in the active-duty, reserve or National Guard components of the military.
For decades, the military considered transgender people to be sexual deviants whowere unfit for service.But in 2016, after a year-long policy review, the Obama administration repealed a ban on transgender service, citing the value of ensuring that all qualified individuals were able to serve their country in uniform.
“We have to have access to 100 percent of America’s population for our all-volunteer forces to be able to recruit from among them the most highly qualified – and to retain them,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said at the time.
The repeal followed the Obama administration in 2011 overturning the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prohibited gay service members from serving openly, and the 2015 repeal of a ban on women serving in a wide array of jobs in ground combat units.
After taking office in 2017, Trump announced a ban on transgender military service in a series of tweets, without notifying key defense officials. The move triggered a scramble in the Pentagon, with then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordering another policy review.
In 2018, Mattis adopted a new policy with Trump’s tacit support that softened the full ban, effectively prohibiting new transgender service members from joining the military but allowing those already in uniform to stay on.
The ruling was challenged in court, but the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s partial ban in 2019. The military began enforcing that policy later that year.
President Joe Biden quickly reversed Trump’s ban in an executive order after taking office in 2021.