Several transgender service members and prominent LGBTQ+ rights groups are suing President Donald Trump over an executive order he signed late Monday, directing the Defense Department to ban transgender people from openly serving in the military, reinstating and expanding a policy he put in place during his first administration.
The ban was widely expected as the Trump administration moved quickly to implement a government-wide broadside against transgender people, declaring on his first day in office that there were “only two sexes.”
“Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” Trump’s military order states. “Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”