Transgender Military Policy Delay

The Department of Defense has announced that there will be a 6 month delay in the enactment of policies allowing qualified, transgender individuals to enter military service. Matt Thorn OutServe-SLDN Executive Director stated, "Under former Secretary Carter's guidance, the services were directed to develop policies which would allow transgender individuals to join the military, a privilege they are currently denied. Over the past several months, our team has worked closely with Pentagon officials & allied organizations to ensure necessary policy changes related to accessions were ready for a timely deployment by July 1st. We remain confident that the services are equipped to support this final piece of transgender military service & there should be no delay in its implementation…Transgender service members have been serving, openly & authentically, since October 2016 with no impact on readiness. It is time to full lift the ban on transgender service by implementing this final piece by implementing the accessions policy. This delay is a disservice to the transgender community & to our military as a whole...” READ FULL STATEMENT
More than 14,000 transgender individuals are currently serving in our armed services. Many of them are serving openly as a result of the retention policy as part of the lifting the ban on transgender service last year. Transgender individuals currently serving this Trump administration postponement has no impact on them. However it does affect the many transgender individuals that are standing by ready to report to duty.
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