Following a prolonged battle, the United States (U.S.,) President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender Americans in the military came into effect on the 12th of April.
According to the Trump led ruling party, the U.S., Army is putting itself in the position of great risk by allowing transgenders to serve. A reversal of the order passed under the Obama rule, this move by Trump has quite an adverse effect.
The admission of the transgender community into the Army was a law recognised by the U.S., till the year 2016. On the 1st of July 2016, Barack Obama announced a new policy, which enabled the admission of transgenders into the Army, effective from the 1st of July, 2017.
However, the moment Trump came into power, he kept deferring the date of admission from the 30th of June and announced the 1st of June 2018 as the new date. Post the deferment, President Trump announced a reversal of the Obama/Carter policy and on the 25th of August 2017, he directed Secretary Mattis to implement his decision.
The moment he passed the directive, several people protested against the action and four lawsuits were filed against the decision. After multiple iterations and changes, the U.S., Supreme Court approved Trump’s decision and said it could be effective, post the decision about pending litigations.
The current order passed by the Trump administration states, those who transferred to another gender, were diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” or who require hormone treatments will not be able to enlist into the Army.
However, those who already transitioned or booked appointments for transitioning surgeries before the 12th of April are allowed to stay.
While the law has been passed, the rules for this law are still not clear.
With a lot of people protesting against this move and with the Pentagon saying more than 9,000 transgenders are serving in the Army at the moment, this new move by Trump is causing quite a bit of confusion.
Stay tuned for more updates!
