Elected President of the United States for the second time on November 6, 2024, Donald Trump intends to sign on the first day of his mandate, January 20, 2025, a decree resulting in the exclusion of trans soldiers from the American army. It is what the Times tells uswhich gets this information from Defense sources.
The latter wishes not only to ban trans people from serving in the army (this is not new), but also to dismiss thousands of trans soldiers currently serving in the American ranks, citing medical reasons. An article from The Independent takes stock of the consequences of this decision.
In 2017, during his first term, Donald Trump had already declared that the United States would no longer accept trans people in the army, justifying his desire by ‘huge disruption and medical costs’. The ban had gone into effect in 2019, but the incoming president after him in 2021, Joe Biden, quickly reversed it.
According to the Times, Trump plans to return to Biden’s cancellation when he is officially inaugurated, going further: the new president therefore wants to dismiss the trans soldiers currently in service. This is one of the decrees that Donald Trump intends to sign upon his return to the White House – along with those relating to immigration. Throughout his campaign, the Republican candidate supported anti-trans ads, targeting people who represent less than 1% of the national population.
The military recruiting crisis can only get worse
Former Fox News star Pete Hegseth, known as a sexist pro-gun activist, has been chosen by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Defense. The man, who will be responsible for 1.3 million active military personnel, has always supported Donald Trump’s positions against trans military personnel. He claims, without warning and without foundation, that trans people would not be “not deployable” and would cause «complications».
The ban would affect around 15,000 people serving in the country’s armed forces, at a time when the defense sector is experiencing a recruitment crisis (in 2023, there was a shortage of 41,000 new recruits to meet annual targets). According to Rachel Branaman, executive director of the Modern Military Association of America, this “would create an even more serious recruitment and long-term commitment crisis in the army, not to mention the image of vulnerability reflected to the United States’ adversaries.” And to predict a dark future for the American army: “There will be a significant cost, accompanied by a regression in training; it may take twenty years and billions of dollars to put it back in place.”
Source: www.slate.fr
