President Joe Biden simply signed an executive order to reverse a Trump-era ban on transgender individuals serving in the military.
“This is reinstating a position that previous commanders and, as well as secretaries, have supported,” Biden said from the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. “And what I’m doing is enabling all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform and essentially, restoring the situation there was before where transgender personnel, if qualified in every other way, can serve government in the United States military.”
The move, one of Biden’s key 2020 campaign promises, came during a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin, the nation’s first Black secretary of defense. Harris, Milley, and Austin flanked Biden with social distancing, each wearing a mask.
The executive action revokes Trump’s 2018 presidential memorandum and also confirms the revocation of the presidential memorandum of August 25, 2017.
Before signing the order, he thanked Harris and Milley for their “great, great help,” in addition to Austin.
The executive order “sets the policy that all Americans who are qualified to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States should be able to serve,” per the White House.
Some background on the ban: The coverage, which has been roundly derided by LGBTQ activists as merciless and irrational, was first introduced by Trump in July 2017 through Twitter. The ban particularly blocks people who’ve been recognized with a situation often called gender dysphoria from serving with restricted exceptions.
It additionally specifies that people with out the situation can serve, however provided that they achieve this in response to the intercourse they had been assigned at delivery.
While Trump had argued that transgender troops within the military would result in “great medical prices and disruption,” a 2016 Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Defense Department concluded that letting transgender individuals serve overtly would have a “minimal impression” on readiness and well being care prices.
Hear what Biden stated earlier than signing the order:
