WASHINGTON — President Trump is expected to sign two executive orders Monday prohibiting transgender service members and eliminating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs from the military, The Post has learned.
Trump had signed an order on his first day in office revoking the Biden administration’s 2021 directive that allowed trans people to serve openly in the military, but the incoming EOs will go further.
They lay out military standards on pronouns and gender identity and directly prohibit thousands of transgender service members from the military, citing issues with mental and physical readiness.
“Unit cohesion requires high levels of integrity and stability among service members,” a White House document previewing the order on transgender soldiers reads.
There can be “no accommodation for anything less than resilience, strength, and the ability to withstand extraordinary physical demands,” it says.
“Individuals who are unable to meet these requirements are unable to serve in the military. This has been the case for decades,” the document says.
“It can take a minimum of 12 months for an individual to complete treatments after transition surgery, which often involves the use of heavy narcotics. During this period, they are not physically capable of meeting military readiness requirements and require ongoing medical care. This is not conducive for deployment or other readiness requirements.”
There are no current accounts of how many transgender service members are currently active duty or reserve, but estimates from 2014 suggested there are as many as 15,500.
Trump had announced in tweets in 2017, during his first White House term, that the US would no longer “accept or allow” transgender people to be in the military. His administration then pursued the ban in 2018, but it was ended by the 2021 Biden executive order.
Trump’s latest EO on transgender people in the military also directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to: ban the “use of invented and identification-based pronouns” in the armed forces; prohibit biological males and females from sleeping, changing and using bathing facilities intended for the opposite sex, and “update all Department of Defense medical standards to ensure they prioritize readiness and lethality.”
The document also criticizes former President Joe Biden for allowing the Department of Defense to embrace “gender insanity” and allow soldiers to serve while not being “physically or mentally prepared to” — while also paying for their gender-altering medical treatments.
A document on the second EO, addressing DEI in the armed forces, directs a ban on “discriminatory race- or sex-based preferences by any element of the Armed Forces, the Department of Defense, or the Department of Homeland Security.”
All instances of “discrimination” based on DEI practices will be subject to an internal review by Hegseth, the document reads, indicating that some “woke” generals that Trump has vowed to fire could be under question.
Current DEI practices are a “woke assault” on the military brought about by the Biden and Obama administrations and have led to low morale and the lowest recruiting numbers since 1940, the document argues.
The order will ban all bureaucratic bodies dedicated to DEI in the military — and will direct Hegseth and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to review all academic curricula in US Service Academies to flush them of “radical DEI and gender ideologies.
“Today’s Order moves our military away from this dark period and renews esprit de corps, readiness, and focus. It returns the Pentagon to the warfighter,” the document regarding the DEI order says.
“This Order also combats ideologies that seek to divide our Armed Forces by race, sex or other immutable characteristics and thus tear at cohesion and military efficacy.”
Hegseth, who will be tasked with carrying out Trump’s orders in the DOD, passed his Senate nomination Friday with a vote of 51-50, inching through the tight party line margins with the help of Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.
His message to the force, published Saturday, vows to deter China’s aggression and end wars around the world “responsibly” while reorienting to key threats.
“All of this will be done with a focus on lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards, and readiness,” Hegseth wrote in his statement, echoing similar rhetoric used by the White House.
Trump has already been using the US military to aid in carrying out mass illegal-migrant deportations and securing the southern border. He vowed in his inauguration speech that his highest responsibility as commander-in-chief is to “defend our country from threats and invasions.”
The 2024 GOP platform promised to ensure the US military is the “strongest” in the world, along with some other policy points that are now being implemented in these incoming Executive Orders.
“Republicans will ensure our Military is the most modern, lethal and powerful Force in the World,” the platform read.
“We will invest in cutting-edge research and advanced technologies, including an Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield, support our Troops with higher pay, and get woke Left-wing Democrats fired as soon as possible.”
