Lambda Legal Reacts to Reported Guidance on Transgender Military Ban: “See you in court, President Trump”

(New York, August 5, 2017) -- The Trump administration reportedly has finalized its transgender military ban policy. According to the Los Angeles Blade, the policy, called, “A Guidance Policy for Open Transgender Service Phase Out,” would remove openly transgender enlisted personnel from the military by not allowing them to reenlist and would terminate transgender officers who are up for promotion. Sasha Buchert, Staff Attorney at Lambda Legal and herself a transgender military veteran, issued the following statement:

“The move to purge transgender military personnel is dishonorable to the thousands of transgender men and women who are serving our country with courage and who are integral parts of our armed services. The safety of all service members - transgender or not - is undermined by a policy like this that distracts from the important missions they have for no valid reason. It is also a slap in the face of the leadership who have worked diligently to develop and implement the current policy which has been in place for more than a year without incident.

“The tweeted military trans ban has already been condemned by more than 56 retired generals and admirals and a large percentage of Republican and Democratic senators and representatives.  A majority of Americans support allowing transgender troops to serve openly.

“This mean-spirited and discriminatory attack on our community is capricious, irrational, and clearly driven by anti-LGBT forces in the administration who care more about harming transgender people than keeping our nation safe. It is clearly unconstitutional. Lambda Legal has a long history of fighting for LGBT service members, and, teaming up with OutServe-SLDN, we’re more than ready to fight like hell again. See you in court, President Trump.”