DENVER — The future for transgender troops remains in limbo after President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to revise the Pentagon's policy, likely setting in motion a future ban on their military service.
There are between 9,000 and 12,000 transgender troops in the U.S. military, but officials said it would be difficult to identify all of them.
When detailing the reasoning in his executive order, Trump said, “Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.” He also said the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
Hegseth has 30 days from the issue date to "identify all additional steps and issue guidance necessary to fully implement this order" and 60 days to update military medical standards.
SPARTA, a transgender advocacy organization that supports and defends transgender military service members, issued a response to the president's order, saying in part, "The readiness and physical capabilities of transgender service members is not different from that of other service members."
- Read SPARTA'S full response below
“I never planned on leaving the military, and that's something that's very, very hard for me to wrap my head around,” said Captain Selena Quintanilla, a flight commander with Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs and member of SPARTA. “I had an ongoing joke with my father that he served 25 years in the Army. I told him I was going to serve 26 just to get one over on him.”
Despite an uncertain future, Quintanilla said they remain focused and will show up every day for their country.
“It's certainly difficult, I'm not going to lie, but I feel a responsibility to showcase that I'm still maintaining the standards and I'm still excelling in my roles, in my capacity as an officer in the United States Space Force," they said. “I've been maintaining — ever since the beginning of my military service — all of my medical readiness standards, despite being on hormones and undergoing medical intervention. I am deployable, and at no point have I ever let my standards of excellence waver."
The order is already facing legal challenges from LGBTQ+ organizations representing six active duty transgender service members and two transgender people seeking to enlist. The lawsuitargues the ban violates the Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment and discriminates based on sex and service members' transgender status.
President Trump previously attempted to ban transgender recruits from joining the military during his first term, but it was tangled up in the courts for years before being overturned by President Joe Biden in 2021.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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