Reported White House plans to bar transgender military medical care and recruiting as well as kicking out those deemed unable to deploy amounts to a “purge” of those troops from the armed services, top advocates said Thursday.
The unreleased draft guidance for the Pentagon, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, would give Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the leeway to determine whether current transgender troops can continue to serve, based on “deployability.” Mattis would have six months to enact the new rules, according to the newspaper.
Jennifer Levi, a lead attorney for five transgender troops suing President Trump and Mattis, said the reported guidance would essentially impose the president’s July 26 Twitter announcement of a service ban.
“It’s just the effort to basically purge the military of transgender people, which is what the tweet reflected that Trump’s goal is,” said Levi, who is transgender rights project director with GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders.
Levi’s group and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed suit Aug. 9 for the five transgender troops — all identified as Jane Doe in the filing — and are now preparing to file a motion in D.C. district court for a preliminary injunction.
If successful, the motion could halt Trump and Mattis from implementing any of the new guidance while the lawsuit works its way through the courts. The military has allowed open transgender service for the past year.
“The current reports don’t change our approach of the lawsuit in any way,” Levi said. “We’re pulling together all the pieces to move as quickly as we can.”
Trump tweeted in July that his plans to ban transgender troops “in any capacity” was due to the disruption and cost of such service. Conservative Republicans in the House had been making the same argument leading up to his tweets and had attempted to add measures into annual spending legislation to ban the military from covering transgender medical treatment.
The reported guidance would halt medical treatment such as gender reassignment surgeries and hormone therapy for gender dysphoria, a recognized medical condition, and allow troops to be kicked out if they cannot deploy to war zones, exercises or ships.
By barring recruitment, the guidance could also eventually eliminate transgender troops through attrition. The Pentagon was prepared to begin recruitment in July but put off a decision for six months due to lingering issues over boot camp rules and facilities.
“Regardless of the timeline, it is a purge,” said Sue Fulton, a board member of Sparta, an advocacy group for transgender troops. “I think the reason they are coming up with this deployability red herring is they recognize there is no good rationale to purge transgender troops who are currently serving, without issue I might add, so they are trying to create one.”
Sparta has more than 600 transgender members who serve in the military. They have deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq and Malaysia as well as served on ships and submarines, Fulton said.
“The reality is transgender service members are no less deployable than any other service member,” she said.
