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At the Pentagon, officials said they welcomed the action and said the ministry would start implementing it quickly. “The ministry will immediately take the appropriate policy measures to ensure that people who identify as transgender are eligible to enter and serve in their self-identified gender,” Austin said in a statement. “No one will be separated or fired, or refused to re-enlist, solely on the basis of their gender identity.”
Mr Austin said Mr Biden’s executive order “would ensure that all medically necessary transition-related and legally authorized care is available to all members of the service,” which would remove a big stumbling block for them. trans men and women seeking to join, or remain, the military. He also pledged to review the cases of all transgender servicemen who are currently forced out of the military.
Senior military officials, for their part, reacted on Monday with some relief that the Pentagon would not have to continue to defend the disputed ban – which has resulted in a number of lawsuits across the country – before the courts. law courts. While military officials have refused to speak publicly about the issue for fear of getting into politics, General Milley said during his 2019 confirmation hearing when asked about the transgender issue that “I don’t think ‘there is anything inherent in anyone’s identity to prevent serving in the military.
Advocacy groups who have been fighting the ban since its announcement three years ago – in a tweet from Mr Trump – argued that the Pentagon does not need to spend months studying how to allow transgender people to serve because he had already done so. One such group, the Palm Center, said in a policy brief last summer that the military could quickly reopen its doors to transgender people if ordered to do so.
“A large ship can take a long time to turn around, so often the Pentagon has to study policy changes and move with caution,” Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, said in an interview in July. “But this is the rare case that, given that the military has left an inclusive policy in place for transgender personnel already on duty even as it has implemented its ban, the switch is just waiting to be reversed. .
Others have argued that it was Mr. Trump’s ban, not his cancellation by Mr. Biden, that was reckless.
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