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By Tom Norton
Fact Check Reporter
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President Donald Trump is set to unveil a new executive order that would prohibit transgender citizens from serving in the United States military, an echo of legislation he enforced during his last term in the White House.
Trump, who criticized pro-transgender policy throughout his presidential campaign, was due to announce the new order on Monday, among his executive actions that have targeted gender identity.
During Trump's first term, he prevented trans people from joining the military but allowed those already serving to continue. The new orders aim to clarify the initial directives Trump issued shortly after his inauguration last week, which revoked protections for transgender troops established by former President Joe Biden.
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This new policy is expected to peel back efforts by Biden's administration to welcome transgender and non-gender conforming Americans into the U.S. military.
Newly-confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told the press on Monday that Trump's newest executive orders would include "reinstating troops who were pushed out because of COVID", "removing DEI inside the Pentagon," and supporting the development of an Iron Dome defense system for the U.S.
Hegseth said an Executive Order concerning transgender troops would be announced today but did not give further details.
With Trump reverting to policies from his last administration that will alter the careers of thousands of personnel, Newsweek examined how many military personnel identify as transgender.
How many U.S. Military personnel identify as transgender?
While the Biden administration attempted to encourage personnel to serve openly, there is limited data on how many members of the combined U.S. Armed Forces are transgender. It is not data that the Department of Defense routinely surveys; what information is available is based on survey data gathered by organizations outside the U.S. military.
Newsweek has contacted a media representative for the Department of Defense and the White House via email for comment.
A Congressional Research Service paper from January 2024 referred to a 2016 RAND Corporation report which estimated that of the 1.3 million active duty service members, 1,320 to 6,630 personnel serving in the active component and 830 to 4,160 in the selected reserve identified as transgender.
The Department of Defense, according to the same Congressional Research Service paper, had provided gender-affirming care (surgical and non-surgical) to 1,892 service members between January 2016 and May 2021.
A 2021 Department of Defence Office of People Analytics report on Workplace and Gender Relations of Military Members which surveyed 98,690 members, found that 0.4 percent identified as transgender, and 1.2 percent whose sex as birth did not match their current gender identity.
A 2015 Department of Defense Health Related Behaviors Survey for Active-Duty Service Members identified that 0.6 percent of service members described themselves as transgender. This question was not asked in the follow-up 2018 survey.
Research from the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute from 2014, based on the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, estimated that 15,500 transgender individuals were serving in the armed forces. It also estimated there were more than 134,000 transgender individuals who were veterans or had retired from Guard or Reserve service. This, it said, implied that an estimated 0.6 percent of adults who reported service in the armed forces were transgender.
Executive backlash
Ahead of Monday's expected announcement, President Trump was sued over another executive order that rolled back protections for transgender people.
The complaint was filed on behalf of a plaintiff using the pseudonym Maria Moe. It alleges the order violates Moe's constitutional and statutory rights and that if transferred to a men's facility, "she will be at an extremely high risk of harassment, abuse, violence and sexual assault."
The president is already facing at least half a dozen lawsuits in response to executive orders he signed and many more legal challenges are likely to be filed as federal agencies start working to carry out the president's directives.
He has also faced veiled criticism for his attitude toward the transgender community. Last week, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde confronted Trump about immigration and LGBTQ+ issues during an inaugural prayer service.
"There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives," Buddes said.
Trump later criticized the prayer service on Truth Social, his social media platform, calling the bishop a "radical Left hard line Trump hater," "very ungracious" and "not very good at her job."
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