Donald Trump is preparing an executive order to remove all transgender members of the military on his first day in office.
According to The Times of London, Trump will go further than his order during his first term that banned transgender people from joining the armed forces, but allowed existing members to stay, and will instead remove serving members as well.
“There are believed to be about 15,000 active service personnel who are transgender,” The Times reports.
“They would be medically discharged, which would determine that they were unfit to serve.”
In March 2018, Trump released a memorandum disqualifying “persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria” from military service, “except under limited circumstances.”
Joe Biden then reversed that ban.
The Times quotes sources as saying a new ban on all transgender personnel could “undermine the readiness of the military” and that the vacant positions could take “months or even years to fill.”
Trump’s nominee for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been vocal in his criticism of “weak” and “effete” leadership in the military, and said in a recent book that “the next commander in chief will need to clean house.”
Hegseth has also targeted payments for medical care for transgender personnel as an extravagance, saying that focusing so heavily on an issue that affects a tiny proportion of individuals in the military is “lunacy.”