President Donald Trump rescinded a Biden-era order that allowed transgender people to serve in the military.
After taking the oath of office on Monday, the new president signed a revocation order against the former president Joe Biden’s order known as Enabling All Qualified Americans To Serve Their Country in Uniform, signed in 2021.
During his campaign, Trump promised to reinstate the ban on transgender troops he imposed during his first term. In his inauguration speech, he said he would formally recognize that there are only two genders: male and female.
There are an estimated 9,000 to 14,000 transgender service members.
The new executive order was part of a rapid succession of steps Trump has taken to undo Biden’s policies. In a statement, the White House called out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within the federal government that “have corrupted it by replacing hard work, merit and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy.”
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President Donald Trump has rescinded a Biden-era order that allowed transgender people to serve in the military. (Greg Nash/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The move is part of a campaign by Trump and his nominee for secretary of defense Piet Hegseth to eliminate all DEI practices in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Last week, Trump appointed Matthew Lohmeier as the next Undersecretary of the Air Force. In 2021, Lohmeier, a Space Force lieutenant colonel, was fired after criticizing the military’s diversity programs and accusing him of “Marxism” within its ranks.
Lohmeier has self-published a book, “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest and the Unmaking of the American Military,” and appeared on podcasts arguing that the military was weakened by Marxism, diversity efforts and critical race theory.
President Donald Trump pledged during his campaign to reinstate the ban on transgender troops he imposed during his first term. (Photo by Hedil Amir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, praised the move, “already restoring our military’s focus on lethality by ending woke DEI programs.”
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Monday’s actions are part of a broader Republican crackdown on the president transgenderism within the military. GOP lawmakers successfully included an amendment in their 2025 defense policy bill that would ban irreversible transgender care for minors in the military health care system.
The move is part of a campaign by President Donald Trump and his defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, to eliminate all DEI practices among U.S. armed forces. (AP)
An order requiring the federal government to recognize only two genders has banned the use of taxpayer money for “transgender services” after reports that some prisoners received government-funded transgender care. Medicaid currently covers such treatments in some states.
That order also requires federal prisons and shelters for immigrants and rape victims to be segregated based on biological sex. It would block requirements in government agencies and workplaces that transgender people be referred to by pronouns that match their gender. Trump’s team says these demands violate the First Amendment’s freedoms of speech and religion.
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The decision does not provide a national mandate which bathrooms transgender people can use or what sports competitions they can participate in, although many states have passed laws in those areas.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
