Trump’s transgender ban has harmed US military, experts find

US president has argued that transgender personnel were a ‘disruption’, but study finds ban has achieved exactly that

Donald Trump’s ban on many transgender people enlisting in the US military has harmed American forces, former defence physicians have said in a study.

Recent restrictions on transgender recruitment were said to have “harmed readiness” and “inflict[ed] concrete harms” on the military through lower recruitment levels and worse morale among personnel.

Three former military doctors and the Palm Centre, a LGBTQ research institute, wrote in the report that “recruitment, reputation, retention, unit cohesion, morale, medical care, and good order and discipline” had all been disrupted by the ban.

The report’s conclusions sit stark contrast with the Trump administration argument for the the ban, which came into effect last April.

Mr Trump first suggested three years ago that he would reverse an Obama administration policy allowing transgender Americans to serve openly. 

Mr Trump claimed at the time the time that the ban would improve military readiness because transgender personnel were a “disruption”.

But the study said: “Contrary to claims by the president and the Pentagon that allowing transgender service would be disruptive and costly, the ban itself has harmed readiness."

As well as restricting the military’s recruitment pool - with some 200,000 Americans believed to be transgender - the restrictions were also reported to have undermined cohesion within military ranks, and permitted attacks on LGBTQ service members.

“The ban’s overriding message [was] that transgender people don’t belong in uniform could be used to drive such service members out,” said the report.

There are around 15,000 transgender service members in the US military, according to Pentagon data, with those who came out prior to the Trump administration ban allowed to continue serving as long as they did so under the sex they were assigned at birth or obtained a waiver.

Because of those exceptions, the Pentagon insisted the restrictions on new recruitment were not a “ban”.

Mr Trump’s policy could some come to an end under Joe Biden’s presidency.

Shannon Minter, the legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, told Bloomberg this week that he hoped and expected “it will be one of the first things he does” after he entered the White House.

“It wouldn’t require a lot of work because the prior policy is of course still in place for the transgender service members who had already transitioned and came out,” said Minter, who has worked on  the civil lawsuit challenging the ban.