Transgender
people will be allowed for the first time to enlist in the U.S. military
starting on Monday as ordered by federal courts, the Pentagon said on Friday,
after President Donald Trump’s administration decided not to appeal rulings
that blocked hi
s transgender ban.
Two federal
appeals courts, one in Washington and one in Virginia, last week rejected the
administration’s request to put on hold orders by lower court judges requiring
the military to begin accepting transgender recruits on Jan. 1.
A Justice
Department official said the administration will not challenge those rulings.
“The
Department of Defense has announced that it will be releasing an independent
study of these issues in the coming weeks. So rather than litigate this interim
appeal before that occurs, the administration has decided to wait for DOD’s
study and will continue to defend the president’s lawful authority in District
Court in the meantime,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In
September, the Pentagon said it had created a panel of senior officials to
study how to implement a directive by Trump to prohibit transgender individuals
from serving. The Defense Department has until Feb. 21 to submit a plan to
Trump.
Lawyers
representing currently-serving transgender service members and aspiring
recruits said they had expected the administration to appeal the rulings to the
conservative-majority Supreme Court, but were hoping that would not happen.
Pentagon
spokeswoman Heather Babb said in a statement: “As mandated by court order, the
Department of Defense is prepared to begin accessing transgender applicants for
military service Jan. 1. All applicants must meet all accession standards.”
Jennifer
Levi, a lawyer with gay, lesbian and transgender advocacy group GLAD, called
the decision not to appeal “great news.”
“I’m hoping
it means the government has come to see that there is no way to justify a ban
and that it’s not good for the military or our country,” Levi said. Both GLAD
and the American Civil Liberties Union represent plaintiffs in the lawsuits
filed against the administration.
“COSTS AND
DISRUPTION”
In a move
that appealed to his hard-line conservative supporters, Trump announced in July
that he would prohibit transgender people from serving in the military,
reversing Democratic President Barack Obama’s policy of accepting them. Trump
said on Twitter at the time that the military “cannot be burdened with the
tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would
entail.”
Four federal
judges - in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Riverside, California -
have issued rulings blocking Trump’s ban while legal challenges to the
Republican president’s policy proceed. The judges said the ban would likely
violate the right under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection under the
law.
The Pentagon
on Dec. 8 issued guidelines to recruitment personnel in order to enlist
transgender applicants by Jan. 1. The memo outlined medical requirements and
specified how the applicants’ sex would be identified and even which
undergarments they would wear.
The Trump
administration previously said in legal papers that the armed forces were not
prepared to train thousands of personnel on the medical standards needed to
process transgender applicants and might have to accept “some individuals who
are not medically fit for service.”
The Obama
administration had set a deadline of July 1, 2017, to begin accepting
transgender recruits. But Trump’s defense secretary, James Mattis, postponed
that date to Jan. 1, 2018, which the president’s ban then put off indefinitely.
Trump has
taken other steps aimed at rolling back transgender rights. In October, his
administration said a federal law banning gender-based workplace discrimination
does not protect transgender employees, reversing another Obama-era position.
In February, Trump rescinded guidance issued by the Obama administration saying
that public schools should allow transgender students to use the restroom that
corresponds to their gender identity.
Reuters
0 Comments