US President-elect Donald Trump is planning to ban all transgenders from serving in the military and is expected to launch on his first day back in the White House, The Sunday Times reported citing sources.
This order would force around 15,000 people, believed to be transgenders, out of their posts in the army.
According to sources, these personnel would receive special medical discharges, deeming them unfit for military service.Additionally, Trump, 78, is expected to implement a complete prohibition on transgender individuals joining the military, despite various service branches currently facing recruitment challenges.
Trump has criticised what he terms as ‘woke’ military practices, suggesting military leadership prioritises diversity, equality and inclusion over combat readiness.
Sources informed the Sunday Times that personnel would face removal regardless of their length of service. One source stated: “These people will be forced out at a time when the military can’t recruit enough people. Only the Marine Corps is hitting its numbers for recruitment and some people who will be affected are in very senior positions.”
Trump’s latest pick for secretary of defence, Fox News host Pete Hegseth, has already stirred widespread concern over his inflammatory views on women, transgender people, and diversity initiatives within the military.
During a recent interview with former Navy SEAL and conservative podcast host Shawn Ryan, Hegseth spoke out against wokeism in the military, blaming it for the recruitment drop off.
“Being transgendered in the military causes complications and differences. And the book kind of lays out the common arguments that those on the left or others make which are baked in social justice. So it started, you know, we saw it under Clinton with the tinkering of don’t ask, don’t tell and the reasons for those changes. And I talked to some of the people involved in when that was changed. But it really happened, started to accelerate under Obama. And you saw it with, you saw the trans stuff come at the end of the Obama administration,” Hegseth said.
“You saw the women in combat come at the end of the Obama administration. It’s because they looked around at the bureaucracies that they controlled in Washington and the one that was that they didn’t control. Obama’s spent a disproportionate amount of time focusing on the Pentagon. They were skeptical of leadership and eventually brought in political appointees and generals who would do their bidding the way they wanted. Which, as you know, in a top down organization changes the ethos of the whole thing,” he added.