Biden lifts Trump ban on transgender military service

President Joe Biden has reversed Donald Trump’s decision to ban transgender military service. Trump’s decision made back in 2017 effectively reversed Obama’s initial decision to allow open service.

‘Gender identity should not be a bar to military service’

Last year, the 78-year-old announced that it would be high up on his agenda to allow ‘transgender service members serve openly and free from discrimination in the military’. And, It looks like Biden has held good on his promise. A Whitehouse spokesperson recently announced:

President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service, and that America's strength is found in its diversity.

The spokesperson continued to announce that an ‘inclusive service is an effective service’:

Allowing all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform is better for the military and better for the country because an inclusive force is a more effective force. Simply put, it's the right thing to do and is in our national interest.

Newly appointed Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has also backed up Biden in his views. Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee he announced:

I support the president's plan to overturn the ban. If you're fit and you're qualified to serve and you can maintain the standards, you should be allowed to serve, and you can expect that I will support that throughout.

Since the 1960’s transgender people could be discharged from the military based on their sexual identity. However, in 2016 Obama made put in motion the efforts to turn that ban around. Unfortunately, former POTUS Donald Trump made the decision to reverse Obama’s change just one year later stating:

Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.

This is just the latest of Biden’s damage control

Since his inauguration, Biden has gotten straight to work, reversing many of Trump’s previous policies. On his first day alone Biden signed off on a whopping 15 executive orders.

The POTUS has already tackled issues such as implementing stricter rules around coronavirus safety measure, initiating efforts to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organisation as well as halting efforts to build a wall along the Mexican border.

However, it was Biden’s decision to halt the deportation of undocumented immigrants that led to Texas being the first state to sue Biden’s administration. Documents submitted to the District Court for the Southern District of Texas claim that the move goes against immigration laws:

On its first day in office, the Biden Administration cast aside congressionally enacted immigration laws and suspended the removal of illegal aliens whose removal is compelled by those very laws. In doing so, it ignored basic constitutional principles and violated its written pledge to work cooperatively with the State of Texas to address shared immigration enforcement concerns.

These are just the first of many moves expected by Biden over the next four years. However, it is understood that he may receive pushback on many potentially controversial issues such as this.