WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Army has indicated that President Donald Trump’s executive order banning gender-confused individuals from entering the military has gone into effect and that the “transitioning” of military members has been halted.
“The U.S. Army will no longer allow [professed] transgender individuals to join the military and will stop performing or facilitating procedures associated with gender transition for service members,” stated a Valentine’s Day post by the U.S. Army on X.
“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,” read a subsequent post, adding, “Individuals with gender dysphoria have volunteered to serve our country and will be treated with dignity and respect.”
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.
— U.S. Army (@USArmy) February 14, 2025
The posts by the Army closely echo a memo by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, circulated on February 7.
“Effective immediately, all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused,” wrote Hegseth. “All unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for Service members are paused.”
While pro-transgender activists claim there are currently 15,000 military members who claim that they are “transgender” – out of a total 1.3 million active duty personnel – officials say that the actual number is a fraction of that.
During his inauguration speech, President Trump promised that the federal government would only acknowledge two sexes – male and female – while vowing to “defeat the toxic poison of gender ideology.”
Trump then signed an executive order on Day One of his presidency, rescinding 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 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, on January 27, Trump ordered the Pentagon to craft a policy to ensure the readiness and effectiveness of the Armed Forces, which 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,” wrote Trump. “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 longstanding policy of the Department of Defense (DoD) “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.’”
As a result, many mental and physical health conditions are incompatible with active duty, from conditions that require substantial medication or medical treatment to bipolar and related disorders, eating disorders, suicidality, and prior psychiatric hospitalization.
Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, 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.
For the sake of our Nation and the patriotic Americans who volunteer to serve it, military service must be reserved for those mentally and physically fit for duty. The Armed Forces must adhere to high mental and physical health standards to ensure our military can deploy, fight, and win, including in austere conditions and without the benefit of routine medical treatment or special provisions.
“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,” warned then-candidate Trump at a campaign rally in North Carolina in August.