Pentagon Forced to Resume Medical Policy for Trans Soldiers

The Department of Defense will restart providing gender-based medical care for transgender troops, as a related court case continues through the legal process.

A new memo indicates that the department will return to the Biden-era medical policy for transgender service members due to a court order that determined Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s restrictions as unconstitutional, according to Politico. The administration is currently appealing the decision, but a federal appeals court denied its effort to halt the policy while the appeal is pending.

The denial means the department cannot remove transgender troops or restrict their medical care.

“Service members and all other covered beneficiaries 19 years of age or older may receive appropriate care for their diagnosis of [gender dysphoria], including mental health care and counseling and newly initiated or ongoing cross-sex hormone therapy,” Dr. Stephen Ferrara, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said in a memo dated April 21.

The Department of Justice has repeatedly argued in court that the ban is a policy targeting people with gender dysphoria, not all transgender people, but Hegseth’s own comments have been used to push back on that argument.

“At the Defense Department, that means no more distractions, no more social engineering, no more climate change worship, no more electric tanks, no more gender confusion, no more pronouns, no more excuses, no more quotas, no more woke bulls*** that undermines commanders and command climates,” Hegseth said on Wednesday.

He said during a Fox & Friends interview a day earlier that the president brought him in “to get rid of trans lunacy in the military.”

The Pentagon referred the Washington Examiner to the Department of Justice.

Former acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness Darin Selnick, who was fired last week, said in a February memo that having gender dysphoria is “incompatible with military service.”

“It is the policy of the United States government to establish high standards for service member readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,” the policy memorandum reads. “This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria or who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria.”

The military does not track the number of transgender individuals in it, though a 2018 independent study by the Palm Center, which researches such subjects, assessed that there were roughly 14,000 transgender troops.

The military lifted a ban on transgender troops in 2016 during the Obama administration, and then Trump reversed the policy following court battles in 2019. Trump’s successor, former President Joe Biden, undid Trump’s reversal just days after taking office.

There are multiple other lawsuits challenging the department’s policies as well.