US military will no longer accept trans troops, Pete Hegseth’s memo says | Trump administration

The US military will no longer allow transgender individuals to join the armed forces and will stop performing or facilitating procedures associated with gender transition for service members, according to a memo from defense secretary Pete Hegseth filed in court Monday.

Hegseth’s memo comes after Donald Trump signed an executive order in January that took aim at transgender troops in a personal way. The president’s order had said that a man identifying as a woman was “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member”.

To that end, the memo from Hegseth on Monday – filed with the US district court in Washington DC – said: “Effective immediately, all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused.

“All unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for service members are paused.”

Hegseth’s memo added, “The department must ensure it is building ‘one force’ without subgroups defined by anything other than ability or mission adherence. Efforts to split our troops along lines of identity weaken our force and make us vulnerable. Such efforts must not be tolerated or accommodated.”

The memo from Hegseth cited Trump’s executive order, stating: “As the president clearly stated … ‘expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service’.”

Hegseth said individuals with gender dysphoria who are already in the military would be “treated with dignity and respect”, and the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness would provide additional details on what this would mean.

The military has about 1.3 million active-duty personnel, according to US department of defense data. While transgender rights advocates say there are as many as 15,000 transgender service members, officials say the number is in the low thousands.

A poll from Gallup published on Monday said 58% of Americans favored allowing openly transgender individuals serving in the military – but the support had declined from 71% in 2019.

A US federal judge recently asked lawyers for Trump’s second presidential administration to ensure that six military members who sued to stop the executive order targeting transgender troops are not removed from service before further court proceedings are held.

Civil rights organizations had filed for a temporary restraining order after a service member alleged that she was told she must either be classified as a man or be separated from the military.

Miriam Perelson, a 28-year-old female transgender service member based at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, had said she was required to leave the sleeping area for female troops. She was given a cot in an empty classroom and not allowed to use the female restrooms.

On Thursday, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign filed a lawsuit on behalf of three senior Naval officers against the Trump administration over his executive order to ban transgender people from the military.

In the lawsuit, two of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy groups wrote: “Transgender service members take the same oath as every other service member to serve our nation and place themselves in harm’s way – potentially paying the ultimate price – in service of our country. And to be clear, our country needs ready, able, and willing service members to stand up and protect our freedoms.”

It added: “But the 2025 military ban turns them away and kicks them out for no legitimate reason. Rather, it baselessly declares all transgender people unfit to serve, insults and demeans them, and cruelly describes every one of them as incapable of ‘an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life’, based solely because they are transgender. These assertions are, of course, false.”