President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders Monday to remake the Pentagon in his hardline image, setting the stage for banning transgender troops who have honorably served and reinstating service members who were booted for refusing COVID vaccines.
Trump also directed new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s department to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and create a space-based missile defense system for the United States.
The executive order on transgender troops, which was widely expected, instructs Hegseth to develop and implement a new policy that would likely ban their participation in the armed services.
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“Adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” reads the order.
During his first term, Trump implemented a policy barring trans men and women from serving openly in the military in April 2019, after the Supreme Court ruled the policy could go ahead while court challenges proceeded.
Former President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s policy and reinstated any troops impacted by the ban shortly after taking office in 2021.
Two groups that launched a court challenge against Trump’s effort to bar transgender service members during his first term said they will mount another against his latest executive order.
“We have been here before and seven years ago were able to successfully block the earlier administration’s effort to prevent patriotic, talented Americans from serving their country,” Sasha Buchert, a lawyer for LGBT civil rights group Lambda Legal, said in a statement.
“Not only is such a move cruel, it compromises the safety and security of our country and is particularly dangerous and wrong. As we promised then, so do we now: we will sue.”
The statement was issued jointly with LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.
There is no official count of transgender service members, but a 2018 report by the Palm Center estimated there were 14,000 on active duty and reserve combined. A 2020 report by researchers at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences determined there were roughly 8,000 transgender service members on active duty.
Trump’s order could, thus, lead to the dismissal of thousands of service members at a time when the Army has failed to meet recruitment goals, missing its 2023 target by 10,000 soldiers or 20 percent.
Meanwhile, the president’s order to reinstate troops who were booted from the armed services—or stepped down voluntarily—for refusing to receive Covid-19 vaccines could impact some 8,200 people.
The Covid vaccine was made mandatory by the Pentagon in August 2021 for all service members, but the policy was rolled back in January 2023.
Since they were told they could reenlist, little more than 100 have taken up the offer.
Trump’s order to abolish “the DEI bureaucracy”—which also applies to the U.S. Coast Guard, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security—was also widely expected and is in line with instructions his administration has meted out across the federal government.
The Pentagon-specific order calls for an end to “any vestiges of DEI offices, such as sub-offices, programs, elements, or initiatives established to promote a race-based preferences system that subverts meritocracy.”
Trump’s order that the military create its own “Iron Dome” situated in space harkens back to President Ronald Reagan’s so-called “Star Wars” initiative in the 1980s that never took off. It also echoes Trump’s first term, when he established the United States Space Force.
He called for the development a missile defense system that will deploy “space-based interceptors” to counter the threat of ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles.
Hegseth has 60 days to submit plans for the space-based missile defense system, according to the order.
