Recommendations from the Pentagon’s working group that’s looking at lifting the ban on transgender troops are almost six months overdue, and one key House Democrat is calling on the Defense Department to pick up the pace.
Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said he would like to see the working group speed up its consideration of whether the Pentagon should repeal the ban on transgender troops serving openly.
“I believe that enabling transgender Americans to serve openly in our military will make it stronger and more exemplary of the values for which our men and women in uniform risk their lives — individual freedom and equal opportunity,” Hoyer said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “I would encourage the working group to complete its work in a timely fashion and work quickly to implement a repeal of the ban. I stand ready to help the secretary make this happen.”
Even though “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed to allow gay and lesbian troops to serve openly, transgender service members can still be kicked out of the military. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the formation of a working group on the issue on July 13, saying that it would release its findings on policy and readiness implications of lifting the ban within six months.
“At my direction, the working group will start with the presumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified,” Carter said during the announcement.
But six months came and went with no results. As the Pentagon approaches one year since the working group was formed, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said that the group has taken steps forward, even in recent days.
“There has been progress in terms of trying to consider how to move forward here and resolve this issue in the fashion that he first outlined several months ago,” Cook said during a briefing this week. “And I can tell you that there have been significant conversations within the building on that front. And we expect the secretary, as he said recently, to be able to announce something soon.”
Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, said the delay of the self-imposed six-month deadline is “a big deal.”
“To have let the deadline for the transgender review pass for almost another six months without explanation doesn’t speak well to the priority that the military may or may not place on troops waiting in limbo,” Belkin said.
The Palm Center, a research institute focused on sexual minorities in the military, is organizing an event in Washington on July 13 to serve as a reminder that at least 77 troops have publicly identified as transgender and are waiting on a decision, Belkin said. While there’s no way to know how many transgender troops are serving who have not identified themselves to leadership, Belkin said there are an estimated 12,000 who are afraid that they could be out of a job at the end of this process.
While Carter did make it more difficult to kick out transgender troops while the working group is meeting by requiring a higher-level official to approve the discharge, Belkin said that the ban still “has the force of law.”
Belkin said that studies have shown that repealing the ban would not be complicated, and said it was “disturbing” that Carter referred to lifting the ban as a complicated issue during a talk at the Air Force Academy.
“When he says it’s complicated, even though he has to know that it’s not complicated, that sends a worrisome signal about what’s really going on and I don’t know what’s really going on because he’s half a year late on self-imposed deadline,” Belkin said.
