Pentagon to remove transgender service members from military

The Pentagon has ordered military services to set up procedures to identify troops who have been diagnosed with or are being treated for gender dysphoria by March 26, the date after which services have 30 days to begin removing them.

The memo was sent to Department of Defense officials on Thursday after the Pentagon filed the memo as part of their response to a lawsuit, per the Associated Press. A senior defense official said Thursday that they believe there are around 4,200 troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria who are currently active duty or in the National Guard and Reserves.

This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order outlining the steps toward banning transgender service members from serving in the military, with the directive being challenged in court.

The senior defense official, who spoke anonymously with the outlet, said that around $52 million was spent between 2015 and 2024 for psychotherapy, hormone treatment, sex change surgeries, and other treatments for transgender service members.

Darin Selnick, defense undersecretary for personnel, said in the new memo, "The medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service."

The memo stated that the integrity and lethality of the country’s military "is inconsistent" with what transgender people go through as they go through their transitions and that gender is "immutable, unchanging during a person’s life."

US officials said on Thursday that early rough numbers suggest there are around 600 transgender troops quickly identifiable in the Navy, between 300 and 500 in the Army, and less than 50 in the Marine Corps.

Officials said that individuals could be identified by medical treatments that were documented, for example, and said that the numbers were likely to increase. Troops that transitioned before joining may not yet be in those totals.

Two exceptions are given for transgender troops. The Associated Press reported that these are, "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.’"