How the military is dealing with Hegseth’s order to remove transgender troops

By LOLITA C BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON AP The military services scrambled Friday to nail down details and put together new guidance to start removing transgender troops from the force Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a memo disclosed late Thursday reinstated orders issued earlier this year that mentioned expressing a false gender identity divergent from an individual s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military amenity His new order gives progressing duty troops until June to identify themselves as transgender and voluntarily begin to leave the provision National Guard and Reserve troops have until July Army Maj Alivia Stehlik who served in the infantry and is now a physical therapist will be eligible to retire in three years but doesn t want to be forced out for being a transgender organization member I still have a job to do she commented My command expects me to show up and be an officer and do my job because I m the only person at my unit who can do what I do The military services were rushing to put out new guidance to help commanders work through the process including what to do in more complex situations such as if any of the troops are deployed at sea or may require special orders or funding to meet the deadlines Here s a look at the issue and what happens next What is going on with banning transgender troops In then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter broached the idea of lifting the ban on transgender troops and allowing them to serve openly which raised concerns among military leaders He set up a assessment and in June disclosed the ban was over Reinstating that ban has long been a goal for President Donald Trump Six months into his first term Trump disclosed he was not going to allow transgender people to serve in the military in any quota That set off a roughly two-year struggle to hammer out the complex details of how that would work even as legal challenges poured in The Pentagon eventually laid out a protocol that allowed those now serving to stay and continue with plans for hormone treatments and gender transition if they had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria But it barred new enlistments of anyone with gender dysphoria who was taking hormones or had transitioned to another gender Gender dysphoria occurs when a person s biological sex does not match up with their gender identity That ban was overturned by then-President Joe Biden When Trump took office again this year he directed Hegseth to revise the Pentagon s framework on transgender troops Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth arrives for a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden of the White House Thursday May in Washington AP Photo Alex Brandon In late February Pentagon leaders ordered the services to set up procedures to identify troops diagnosed with or being treated for gender dysphoria by March And it gave them days to begin removing those troops from system A flurry of lawsuits stalled the ban But on Tuesday the Supreme Court ruled that the administration could enforce the ban while other legal challenges proceed How a great number of transgender troops are there There are about million functioning duty Guard and Reserve troops According to the Defense Department about utility members have voluntarily identified themselves as transgender and will now begin the process of leaving the military Defense functionaries say troops began to self-identify after the February order going to their commanders and filing out forms That process stopped in late March due to the lawsuits but agents declared Friday they were dusting off those files and figuring out how to proceed Related Articles US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused states sue over Trump s move to fast-track oil and gas projects via his vitality crisis order Mayor Baraka of Newark New Jersey arrested at immigration detention center he has been protesting Federal Reserve official sees signs of slowing financial system but not ready to cut rates Pentagon directs military to pull library books that address diversity anti-racism gender issues Still exactly how a large number of troops may be affected is complicated and the military services are grappling with how to identify and remove them all Defense representatives have revealed that troops in the present serving in evolving duty the National Guard and Reserve have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria And they contend that as of late last year about amenity members had received gender-affirming hormone therapy from to and about received gender-affirming surgery Previously however estimates of transgender troops have hovered between and And they could range from people who haven t been officially diagnosed or aren t taking medication to those who are taking medication have undergone surgery or are in the process of transitioning to their preferred gender In March then-Defense Secretary James Mattis distributed a memo with unprecedented details on the facts It explained at that time there were function members who identified themselves as transgender and had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria Is military separation voluntary or not Hegseth s latest memo sets up two distinct processes but the details remained a bit uncertain System members who voluntarily identify themselves to commanders would likely be able to receive certain type of separation pay which could include cashing out leave time that hasn t been used or bonuses that haven t yet been paid After June the department will go through health records to find any other troops who have been diagnosed with or treated for gender dysphoria and force them to leave the organization Those troops may not qualify for specific of that additional pay The Pentagon plan as written earlier this year would allow for limited exemptions That includes transgender personnel seeking to enlist who can prove on a case-by-case basis that they directly sponsorship warfighting exercises or if an existing utility member diagnosed with gender dysphoria can prove they aid a specific warfighting need never transitioned to the gender they identify with and proves over months they are stable in their biological sex without clinically essential distress If a waiver is issued the applicant would still face a situation where only their biological sex was recognized for bathroom facilities sleeping quarters and even in official recognition such as being called Sir or Ma am What will it mean Over the years transgender troops have been serving effectively in all of the services according to military leaders who communicated Congress they were not seeing any problems They have ranged from rank-and-file enlisted members to elite special operations forces The troops and activist groups argue that removing transgender facility members also hurts their units and military readiness more broadly Stehlik who has been in the military since she went to the U S Military Academy at West Point in transitioned in while serving in the Army She noted that for her and others who haven t hit their -year retirement milestone being kicked out would mean a major loss of benefits including a pension and medical insurance Sarah Klimm a transgender Marine who served for years retired just as the end of the ban was publicized in so was never able to serve openly Now a agenda analyst for Minority Veterans of America she revealed that in the past nine years there haven t been any of the unit cohesion problems that particular feared Klimm announced ousting members is going to hurt military readiness Senior enlisted side and senior officer ranks that s a lot of time and money put into them she declared You don t just backfill it Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill New Jersey contributed to this description