President Donald Trump listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2025, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listen. (AP)
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon revealed the specifics of its new transgender troop policy in a court filing Wednesday that says any service member or recruit who has been diagnosed with or treated for gender dysphoria is disqualified from serving — unless they can prove they meet a specific warfighting need and adhere to restrictions on their day-to-day behavior.
The policy memo was included in the latest court filing in a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order against transgender military service.
Like the executive order, the policy filed Wednesday suggests that the lethality and integrity of the military “is inconsistent” with what transgender personnel go through as they transition to the gender they identify with, and issues an edict that gender is “immutable, unchanging during a person’s life.”
The policy provides two exceptions — if transgender personnel who seek to enlist can prove on a case-by-case basis that they directly support warfighting activities, or if an existing service member, who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, can prove they support a specific warfighting need and never transitioned to the gender they identify with and proves over 36 months they are stable in their biological sex “without clinically significant distress.”
If a waiver is issued in either case, the applicant would still face a situation where only their biological sex was recognized for bathroom facilities, sleeping quarters and even in official recognition, such as being called “Sir” or “Ma’am.”
Gender dysphoria occurs when a person’s biological sex does not match up with their gender identity.
The number of transgender troops serving is small compared to the size of the total force. The military services due to medical privacy laws do not provide an exact count of transgender troops, but a 2018 independent study by the Palm Center, which researched LGBTQ issues, assessed there were an estimated 14,000 transgender troops among the more than 2 million troops serving.
