New Army Secretary Mark Esper has spent his first three months on the job traveling around the world hearing from soldiers about everyday concerns such as pay and chow. But there is one controversial topic that was not brought up: A ban on transgender soldiers.
“It really hasn’t come up,” Esper said in a rare informal meeting with reporters Thursday.
The Pentagon has a Wednesday deadline to provide recommendations to President Trump on how to implement his order to roll back the open transgender service policy of the Obama administration, potentially endangering the military careers of hundreds or thousands of troops who were encouraged to come out to commanders over the past two years.
The Army has given its own recommendations to a Pentagon working group that is handling development of the new transgender policy, Esper said.
“I took the time in my first 30 days to meet with a group of transgender soldiers and talk about what they see, experience from their perspective, and it was very helpful for me,” Esper said.
But the rank-and-file soldiers Esper met with in California, Alabama, Afghanistan, South Korea, Belgium, Germany and elsewhere did not voice any memorable concerns.
“Soldiers tend to talk about, you know, ‘I didn’t get my pay, and ‘this MRE tastes terrible,’ and ‘I wanted to go to Fort Drum but I’m going to this fort,’” Esper said. “I talked to them about other things that nag on them.”
It remains unclear how many transgender soldiers there are in the Army. Esper said Thursday that he does not know the exact number. Estimates have varied widely on the total number across the entire military, from the Pentagon’s own estimate of hundreds to advocacy rights saying 10,000 or more.
A recent Rand Corp. study put the number at 1,300 to 6,600, but Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has cast doubt on the findings.
Trump announced in July that transgender troops would no longer be allowed to serve “in any capacity” and then tasked Mattis with writing a new policy, which is due Wednesday. It calls for the policy to be implemented and for payments for gender reassignment surgeries to be ended in March.
However, the ban has been tied up in four federal lawsuits against Trump and Mattis, and judges in all four cases have granted temporary injunctions blocking the Pentagon from changing its policy while the suits are being heard.
