'Absolutely Shameful': LGBTQ Advocates Continue Fight as Trump's Transgender Military Ban Takes Effect

A Trump administration regulation barring transgender people from the military went into effect Friday, even as the policy is being challenged in court.

“It speaks of bigotry, it speaks of discrimination, it speaks of ignorance,” said U.S. congresswoman Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo.

Speier said she has introduced an amendment  to the National Defense Authorization Act to repeal the policy.

On Thursday, the American Medical Association told The Associated Press that the policy and its wording mischaracterize transgender people as having a “deficiency.” It said it also objects to the Defense Department classifying the need to transition to another gender among “administratively disqualifying conditions” that include those the Pentagon has labeled as “congenital or developmental defects.”

The new regulation requires military personnel to serve as their biological gender and bars people who have undergone gender transition from enlisting, unless they began their transition under the previous, less restrictive Obama administration rules.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, called the administration policy “repugnant.”

“It is absolutely shameful that this President continues to actively discriminate against our transgender service members, who are bravely serving this country,” Wiener said in a statement. “Every American should be able to serve their country.”

The Defense Department said its use of the word “deficiencies” is military lingo for when an individual fails to meet standards to maintain a lethal force. It is not a reference to gender dysphoria, a condition of extreme distress because of not identifying with one’s biological gender, Lt. Col. Carla Gleason said.

“The only thing deficient is any medical science behind this decision,” American Medical Association President Dr. Barbara L. McAneny said.

Decorated Army helicopter pilot Lindsey Muller was a plaintiff in one of four lawsuits that tried to block the policy from taking effect. But the final legal injunction was lifted in March, though new legal challenges are expected.

Muller said she and other transgender troops feel demoralized.

“Under our ethical standards, we can’t say anything derogatory against the administration, while we are being presented in a disparaging and derogatory light,” said Muller, 37, who is based in Fort Carson, Colorado.

Troops like Muller, who began openly identifying as a woman in 2016, are worried they will be discharged. The administration says it will not boot current service members who transitioned before the Pentagon issued its directive, though the government has also said it retains the right to eliminate that protection.

Muller said the policy will cost the armed forces far more in terms of losing experienced personnel like herself and training replacements than any costs associated with specialized health care for trans service members. She plans to retire from the military next year after serving 20 years.

Under the new policy, a service member can be discharged based on a diagnosis of gender dysphoria if he or she is “unable or unwilling to adhere to all applicable standards, including the standards associated with his or her biological sex, or seeks transition to another gender.”

It said the discharge should come after an individual “has been formally counseled on his or her failure to adhere to such standards and has been given an opportunity to correct those deficiencies.”

“They can dress it up in whatever words they want, but when you carefully look at this it’s total disrespect for these human beings by saying a core piece of them is not acceptable,” former acting U.S. Army Surgeon General Gale Pollock said.

Pollock signed a statement with three former U.S. surgeons general and two former military surgeons general, saying they are “troubled by the Defense Department’s characterization of the need to undergo gender transition as a ‘deficiency,’ and by the addition of gender dysphoria to official lists of ‘congenital or developmental defects’ that include bed-wetting and ‘disturbances of perception, thinking, emotional control, or behavior.’ ”

An estimated 14,700 troops identify as transgender.

In March, the House passed a nonbinding resolution opposing the Trump administration’s move to restrict transgender men and women from military service in a vote of 238-185.

Military chiefs testified before Congress last year that they found no problems with transgender troops on morale or unit cohesion. Many have received medals since the armed forces welcomed them in 2016.

“A transgender person would have to meet the same standards of fitness and deployability and readiness as anyone else in order to join the military or to stay in the military,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is suing the Trump administration over the policy. “There’s no reason to have a special rule that excludes transgender people just for being transgender other than pure discrimination.”

“We are still challenging it in court,” Minter said. “This is not the end of the story.”

KQED’s Michelle Wiley and Monica Lam and The Associated Press’s Julie Watson, David Crary and Susannah George contributed to this report.