The United States military will soon lift its ban on transgender troops. According to reports from USA Today, the Pentagon plans to announce the end of the ban on July 1, thereby allowing trans people to serve openly in all branches of the armed forces.
If the ban is lifted, it will mark the end of a year-long struggle over whether or not to allow trans people to openly serve. Defense Secretary Ash Carter started the process last year when he announced that the military would be reviewing the question of transgender servicemen and women, and lifting the ban if they could not find an “adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness” from doing so.
Carter gave an indication that a reversal was coming during a question-and-answer session at the Air Force Academy in May.
“The question of principle we’ve sort of settled — what matters is people’s ability to contribute to our military,” he said. “The only barriers we should ever erect to that principle are ones in which there are practical issues that we can’t work through.”
Should the ban be lifted, it will be the latest in a string of victories for LGBTQ+ military members under the Obama administration. The longstanding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy preventing gay people from openly serving in the military was repealed in 2011, and the confirmation of Mark Fanning as Secretary of the Army leaves an openly gay man in charge of a branch of the military for the first time in U.S. history.
(Via USA Today)