(LifeSiteNews) — The Pentagon has done an about face on its Biden-era DEI policy that permitted sexually dysphoric individuals to indulge in transgender identity fantasies within the military. Those individuals will now be banned from joining and those currently in uniform will be removed unless they obtain an exemption.
A memo released by the Pentagon outlining the change in policy notes that trans service members “may be considered for a waiver on a case-by-case basis, provided there is a compelling Government interest.”
“Service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are disqualified from military service,” the memo states.
“Service members who have a history of cross-sex hormone therapy or a history of sex reassignment or genital reconstruction surgery as treatment for gender dysphoria or in pursuit of a sex transition, are disqualified from military service,” the memo explains.
“The scope and severity of the ban are unprecedented,” fretted GLAD Law, an LGBT legal organization. “This is a complete purge of all transgender individuals from military service.”
The move by the Pentagon under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth follows the publishing of an executive order by President Donald Trump on the first day of his presidency that rescinded a Biden administration executive order that had allowed gender-confused people to join the military.
As reported earlier by LifeSiteNews, the Biden order made it “the policy of the United States to ensure that all (so-called) transgender individuals who wish to serve in the United States military and can meet the appropriate standards shall be able to do so openly” and without alleged “discrimination.”
The Biden order revoked President Donald Trump’s first-term decision to prohibit gender-confused individuals from enlisting in the military.
As commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, Trump ordered on January 27 the Pentagon to craft a policy to ensure the readiness and effectiveness of the Armed Forces that included addressing the issue of gender-confused individuals in the military.
“The United States military has a clear mission: to protect the American people and our homeland as the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force,” Trump wrote. “Success in this existential mission requires a singular focus on developing the requisite warrior ethos, and the pursuit of military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.”
“Recently, however, the Armed Forces have been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion,” he explained. It is the long-standing policy of the Department of Defense “to ensure that service members are ‘(f)ree of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.’”
“If you want to have a ‘sex change’ or a social justice seminar, then you can do it somewhere else, but you’re not going to do it in the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, Space Force, or the United States Marines – sorry,” the then-candidate Trump warned at a campaign rally in North Carolina in August.