US Defense Secretary Pauses Allowing Transgender Troops to Enter the Military| National Catholic Register

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) will no longer allow those who identify as transgender or struggle with gender dysphoria to enter the United States military and will halt all insurance coverage for transgender medical procedures for service members, such as surgeries and hormones.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a memorandum outlining the new policy on Friday, Feb. 7, which was made public on Monday, Feb. 10. The memo comes less than two weeks after President Donald Trump issued an executive order that asserted transgenderism is not compatible with military service.

“Effective immediately, all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused, and all unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for service members are paused,” Hegseth’s memo read.

The memo includes a footnote, which defines medical procedures to include genital surgeries and any other transgender surgeries that are meant to make someone appear more similar to the opposite sex. It also expressly includes hormone therapies, which give estrogen to men to feminize them and testosterone to women to masculinize them to facilitate a gender transition.

According to a Congressional Research Service report updated Jan. 10, the DOD spent about $15 million on gender-transition services for active-duty military members from Jan. 1, 2016, through May 14, 2021. Former President Joe Biden established a policy to provide “medically necessary” coverage for gender transitions after he assumed office, but it’s unclear how much money was spent on those services over the last four years.

Trump’s executive order notes that long-standing DOD policy requires members of the military to be free from medical conditions that will likely require excessive time lost from duty. It also notes that DOD policies have long held that certain mental-health conditions are incompatible with active-duty service.

Although the new DOD policy does not permit anyone with a history of gender dysphoria to join the military, it does not clearly state what the impact will be on people who are already members of the military and struggle with gender dysphoria or self-identify as transgender.

The memo states that “individuals with gender dysphoria have volunteered to serve our country and will be treated with dignity and respect.”

It authorizes the department’s undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness to “provide additional policy and implementation guidance outside of the normal DOD issuance process, including guidance regarding service by service members with a current diagnosis or history of gender dysphoria, to implement this direction.”

According to the memo, the DOD’s mission requires members of the military “to abide by strict mental and physical standards,” emphasizing that “the lethality, readiness, and warfighting capability of our force depends on service members meeting those standards.”

“The department must ensure it is building ‘One Force’ without subgroups defined by anything other than ability or mission adherence,” the memo continues. “Efforts to split our troops along lines of identity weaken our force and make us vulnerable. Such efforts must not be tolerated or accommodated.”

In his memo, Hegseth also cites Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order, which states that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”

Trump’s executive order also states that the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”

“A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member,” Trump’s order reads.

Since assuming office on Jan. 20 Trump has taken several actions to reverse the previous administration’s embrace of gender ideology through federal regulations. This includes an executive order to restore “biological truth to the federal government,” which states there are only two genders, male and female, and they are known at the moment of birth based on biological characteristics.

Trump also issued executive orders to ban transgender drugs and surgeries for children and to prohibit biological men competing in women’s sports in K-12 schools, colleges and universities.

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