Transgender people will have until the beginning of June to identify themselves and leave the military voluntarily, according to a new memo from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
With the Supreme Court greenlighting the president’s trans military ban earlier this week, Hegseth has reinstated several orders that were temporarily put on hold by lower courts. The memo, dated May 8, says that transgender people in the military have until June 6 to voluntarily leave the military and still be eligible for voluntary separation pay. Transgender people serving in the reserves have until July 7.
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“A lot of red-blooded, alpha-male, patriotic American men are actually too scared to join the military.”
“There’s no guarantee to access to your pension or severance or an honorable discharge,” said Rae Timberlake of the trans service member organization Sparta Pride. They are one of the estimated 1000 transgender service members choosing to leave the military voluntarily now in order to get some of the benefits they have been earning throughout their career that might not be available if the military forces them out for being transgender after June 6.
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“This is not voluntary,” they told the Guardian. “This is a decision that folks are coming to under duress.”
“These are 1,000 transgender troops that would be serving if the conditions were not created to force them into making a decision for their own wellbeing, or the wellbeing of their family long-term.”
The memo applies to anyone who has been diagnosed with or has symptoms of gender dysphoria, which describes the stress or unhappiness that is a result of one’s gender not aligning with their sex assigned at birth. Pentagon officials estimate that there are around 4240 servicemembers who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria out of the two million people serving in the military.
Hegseth announced the memo with a post to social media that said, “TRANS is out at the DOD.”
“Here at the Defense Department, we continue to relentlessly pursue the president’s agenda, especially on readiness,” Hegseth said in a video posted to social media.
In the video, Hegseth cited an executive order from January that banned trans people from the military. That executive order said that trans people can’t lead “an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle and that not using pronouns associated with a person’s
The executive order led to several lawsuits challenging it, including a lawsuit filed in Washington state brought by seven transgender servicemembers and one trans person who wants to join the military. A federal judge in that case issued a temporary injunction, blocking the Department of Defense from implementing the ban while the court heard the case.
Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed the injunction, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to lift it. So, the DOJ appealed to the Supreme Court, which lifted the injunction earlier this week.
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