This version was “effectively a complete ban on transgender people serving in the military that is expected to impact both transgender Americans interested in enlisting and the thousands of highly trained transgender troops currently protecting our country”.
HRC, along with Lambda Legal, announced it would sue, joining a growing list of states and interest groups challenging Trump’s week-one orders in the legal system.
“This order is unconstitutional, and we will see this administration in court,” said HRC vice president Sarah Warbelow.
Secretary of defence and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth arriving at the Pentagon for his first day.Credit: AP
Trump’s executive order said that under long-standing defence policy, people with medical conditions or physical defects that could involve long periods of treatment or hospitalisation were “incompatible” with active duty.
But it went further, stating the military had been “afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists”, and “the pursuit of military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion”.
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Two other orders signed overnight pertained to the military. One ordered the reinstatement of any personnel discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine under a mandate that ran from August 2021 to January 2023. It also says they will receive full back-pay and benefits.
The other sought to purge so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices from the armed forces. Along with abolishing any DEI offices in the military or Department of Homeland Security, the order banned the promotion of “divisive concepts” such as critical race theory, gender ideology or the idea America’s founding documents are racist or sexist.
Implementation of the orders will fall to Pete Hegseth, Trump’s controversial pick for secretary of defence who was confirmed on Friday night after Vice President J.D. Vance used his casting vote to break a 50-50 tie. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was subject to accusations of sexual assault and inappropriate drunken behaviour, all of which he denied, though he promised to quit drinking if confirmed.
In his first remarks on the job at the Pentagon, Hegseth vowed to implement all of Trump’s orders “swiftly and without excuse”. His task will be to craft and refine the policy, as then-secretary Jim Mattis did in 2017, in a way that can survive the impending court challenges.
However, the Supreme Court upheld the first ban in 2019, and the bench has only grown more conservative since then with Trump’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett in 2020.
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