Adding to the fears of the LGBTQIA+ community, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has proposed an executive order that could lead to the removal of all transgender individuals from the U.S. military.
As per The Sunday Times reports, officials have stated that transgender individuals would be medically discharged, classifying them as "unfit" for military service.
During his first term as U.S. President, the 78-year-old leader implemented a similar order, barring transgender people from joining the armed forces, while allowing those already serving to continue. However, the report indicates that this time, all transgender service members currently enlisted would also be removed.
The executive order is expected to be issued on his first day back as President, January 20, next year.
According to the report, currently, approximately 15,000 transgender individuals are actively serving in the U.S. military. When President Joe Biden lifted Trump's ban on transgender service members, around 2,200 personnel were diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and many others identified as a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth.
Trump, who has consistently opposed the inclusion of transgender individuals in the community, has a central vision: to rid America of what he perceives as "wokeness" and "left-wing indoctrination."
As soon, as he resumed his first term, the U.S. President-elect said he would stop funding schools that teach critical race theory, what he calls "transgender madness," and other topics he believes are not suitable for children, like politics or sexuality. He also wants to stop transgender athletes from competing in girls' sports and ban teaching about gender identity in schools.
Trump’s new secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, who will lead the U.S. military, has criticised the inclusion of transgender people in the military, saying it harms U.S. security, as reported by The Washington Post.
Earlier this month, Trump’s Vice President-elect, JD Vance, sparked controversy by claiming that some white children choose to become transgender to improve their chances of getting into Ivy League colleges.
During a podcast, Hegseth said, "If you are a middle-class or upper-middle-class white parent, and the only thing that you care about is whether your child goes into Harvard or Yale, obviously that pathway has become a lot harder for a lot of upper-middle class kids...The one way that those people can participate in the DEI bureaucracy in this country is to be trans.”