LGBT advocates were elated when Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that the Pentagon intended to lift the military's longstanding ban on transgender members, saying that the current policy was an "outdated, confusing, inconsistent approach that's contrary to our value of individual merit." Nine months later, the transgender community is still waiting for the department to make its move.
Last July, Carter commissioned a task force to look into the implications of lifting the current transgender service ban and gave the group six months to investigate. At the end of 2015, a Pentagon spokesperson said that the task force's initial report would be completed in January, but the findings have yet to be made public. (Several media outlets reported that the Pentagon would end the ban on May 27, but department officials have pulled back from that timeline.)
Currently, the military bans openly transgender people from enlisting and public disclosure of one's transgender status is grounds for discharge. Carter also announced in July a change in the process for discharging currently enlisted transgender service members. The move made it easier for transgender individuals to remain on duty while top Pentagon officials consider lifting the ban, "but it is still unsafe for troops to be out," says Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a San Francisco-based research center that publishes reports on gender, sexuality, and the military.
A New York Times editorial noted that 77 service members have disclosed their transgender status to their superiors in the past year. A 2014 UCLA Williams Institute report estimated that there were 15,500 transgender people in the military. After the most recent military force reductions, Belkin now estimates that there are about 13,000 transgender people in active service.
Two years ago, a commission co-chaired by former U.S. surgeon general Jocelyn Elders reported "that there is no compelling medical rationale for banning transgender military service, and that eliminating the ban would advance a number of military interests."
Recent research bears out those conclusions. According to the Times, a forthcoming RAND Corporation study found that lifting the service ban was unlikely to affect unit cohesion, that only a very small number of individuals would seek gender transition–related medical care annually, and that those costs would be "negligible."
The Pentagon has been criticized for the delays and for a lack of transparency on transgender issues. Earlier this month, Brad Carson, an acting under secretary of defense who had been the Pentagon's top civilian official on personnel matters and a key player in the efforts to open the military to transgender service members, resigned after a combative Senate Armed Forces Committee confirmation hearing earlier this year.
Lifting the ban on transgender military service would be another milestone in the Obama administration's efforts to remove the some of the remaining barriers to military service for certain groups. In 2010, Congress repealed the controversial "Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy that prevented gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members from serving openly. Last December, Carter announced that all military combat positions, including those in elite units like the Navy SEALs, would be open to women.
