The US President has directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender troops, likely setting in motion a future ban on their military service
Washington: President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday directing Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender troops, likely setting in motion a future ban on their military service.
He also ordered troops to be reinstated who had left voluntarily or been booted for refusing Covid-19 vaccines, outlined new rollbacks in diversity programmes and provided for the deployment of a space-based missile defence shield for the US — all on Hegseth’s first day.
Trump and Hegseth had described parts of the anticipated orders throughout the day, but the exact language did not drop until late on Monday.
A transgender ban had been widely expected, and Trump’s order largely sets the stage for a future ban — but directs Hegseth to come up with how that would be implemented in policy. In his order, Trump claimed that service by troops who identify as a gender other than their biological one “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honourable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness, requiring a revised policy to address the matter.
Trump had tried to ban transgender troops during his first term, but it was tangled up in the courts for years before being overturned by then-President Joe Biden shortly after he took office.
Two groups, Lambda Legal and Human Rights Campaign, which represented transgender troops the first time, vowed to fight again.
Space continues to be a priority for the President, who has now directed the Pentagon to begin to develop the capability to shoot down missiles from space.
The Space Force is building a low-orbit ring of redundant satellites that can more quickly track and detect potential missile launches. But establishing a way to shoot missiles down from space is something the US has not pursued since President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defence Initiative — “Star Wars” as it was commonly known — in the 1980s.
The system was never developed due to cost and technological limitations.
In his order called “an Iron Dome for America”, Trump called for a multilayer missile defence system capable of countering an array of threats to the US, to include development and deployment of space-based interceptors.
At least 8,200 troops were forced out of the military in 2021 for refusing to obey a lawful order when they declined to get the vaccine. Trump and Hegseth have stated, “We will offer full reinstatement to any service member who was expelled from the armed forces due to the Covid vaccine mandate.” “And we will restore them to their former rank with full pay,” Trump said.
The order extends the same offer to anyone who signs a sworn statement saying they left the service voluntarily to avoid the vaccine. The order isn’t expected to have a major impact on the number of service members returning. But it could take a bite out of the budget if more do now, since it requires back pay. To return, all would have to meet weight, fitness, medical and other requirements, and they could be refused if they now have a criminal record or other disqualifying factor.
Officers would have to get recommissioned, which is a simple appointment process.
Trump also, as expected, issued a sweeping order to abolish all programmes, initiatives and mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion across the Defence Department and the Coast Guard, which is governed by the Department of Homeland Security.
Without clearer direction, agencies were taking a broad approach to removing any content that seemed to run afoul of Trump’s ban. That temporarily included videos of the storied Tuskegee Airmen and World War II Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, which were part of DEI training courses for the Air Force’s basic military training. Videos on both the Tuskegee Airmen and WASPs were removed as the courses were taken down last week, causing an uproar.
