‘Service Member’s Impact on Military Effectiveness, Lethality, Unit Cohesion and Impact on Budgetary Resources’ to Be Used as Factors
More than four weeks after announcing he is implementing a total ban on transgender service members, President Donald Trump Friday evening has finally issued formal guidance instructing the Defense Dept. how that ban should be implemented. ABC News reports the DoD has received that guidance. Fox News reports the guidance directs the Pentagon to implement the ban by March of 2018. The guidance, in the form of a memo, authorizes the Pentagon to discharge transgender service members.
The Military Times reports the memo contains three major guidelines.
“First, it directed that the Pentagon maintain a ban on any new accessions of transgender personnel into the military. Second, it halted the use of any Pentagon or Department of Homeland Security funds to be used for sex reassignment surgery. Third, it directed [Defense Secretary] Mattis to determine whether those transgender personnel currently in uniform should be allowed to stay.”
A senior administration official who briefed reporters late Friday on the contents of the memo said Trump had directed Mattis to use the criteria of a transgender service member’s impact on military effectiveness, lethality, unit cohesion and impact on budgetary resources.
Secretary Mattis “has until January 2018 to grant exceptions to the funding ban, and also to determine the fate of those transgender personnel now serving, the White House said.”
It appears Secretary Mattis has some discretion on deciding which transgender service members should be discharged and which should stay.
On July 26 President Trump tweeted: “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”
Almost nothing in that statement was true.
Trump had not consulted with his generals, the ban is not expected to include all transgender service members, the annual estimated medical cost of transgender related transition is only about $8 million, and the “disruption” is anything from none to several weeks.
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