After the U.S. Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the green light early last week, it seems President Donald Trump finally has his trans military ban. Following a monthslong process of trying to push the initiative through, the Pentagon announced Thursday that it would begin the process of forcibly discharging over 1,000 openly trans troops.
Military officials also announced that they would initiate inquiries into military health records to identify troops who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, or are receiving treatment and haven’t already been identified for dismissal.
In addition to the trans military discharges, Trump has stripped all mention of trans people from government materials and websites, unilaterally reinterpreted Title IX in a way to exclude trans people from sex discrimination protections in education (under the guise of banning trans athletes), barred trans people from changing the sex marker on their passports and reverted markers for those who previously changed their gender marker and applied for a renewal.
The military was a place where they could build a career and a life under government protection. Now that government is targeting them and kicking them out.
Trump also signed an executive order declaring that the United States only recognizes male and female as valid legal sexes “determined at conception,” signed an executive order barring federal funds from going toward gender-affirming care for youth while ordering the an official inquiry into the national and international medical consensus on such care, and proposed an HHS rule that could result in Affordable Care Act medical plans dropping coverage of gender-affirming care for adults. Trump also ordered that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to end all investigations into anti-trans discrimination cases.
The military ban is particularly egregious in that it targets adults who have volunteered to potentially give their lives for their country, something Trump himself got exemption from when he was younger, citing bone spurs. These people have passed every test they’ve faced along the way and built careers of service, only to see a president and his transphobic administration seize power and drive them out using noxious, bigoted language to do so. The policy as written by Pentagon officials declares that troops identifying as trans “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honourable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle,” because they are trans.
It’s long been estimated that the U.S. military was quite possibly the country’s largest employer of trans people when they were allowed to serve openly for the first time under former President Obama. As a demographic, American trans people were at one point near the top for largest percent of a country serving in the military, behind only American Samoa.
In a country where trans people so often face casual bigotry in job and home-searching, the military was a place where they could build a career and a life under government protection. Now that government is targeting them and kicking them out.
The military ban tells a much broader story of the current state of legal rights for trans people in the U.S. This is the second time around that Trump has ordered a ban on military service; last time President Joe Biden reversed the order. It’s likely that the next Democratic president will similarly lift this ban, but that will be too late for many who are having their careers and lives ruined by Trump today. Beyond that, the next Republican president will likely reinstitute yet another ban — and on and on the eternal transphobia carousel turns. Eventually, trans people will likely stop bothering to try, which no doubt is the ultimate conservative goal with all of these anti-trans policies. This is the reality that trans people have faced now for years. Every four or eight years someone from the red or blue side gets voted into the White House and determines how equal we are in society and under the law until someone from the other side gets voted in and reverses course. Want an accurate passport that matches your appearance? Better get a renewal before the bad side takes office. Want to press a discrimination claim against a transphobic employer? Depends on if the guy from the blue or red team won the last election. This is no way for a government to treat a couple million law-abiding, harmless citizens who simply want to be left alone — and in many cases, make the ultimate sacrifice for a government that’s now rejecting them. With Democrats mostly reluctant to counter the near-constant drumbeat of anti-trans policy and propaganda, I don’t see a way off this roller coaster in my lifetime, and I have a lot of life left to live. I guess I’ll just wait until the next election to live my life, hopefully it goes my way.
Katelyn Burns is a freelance journalist based in New England. 
