The incoming Trump administration has not yet made a decision about whether to discharge transgender people serving in the U.S. military.
“No decisions on this issue have been made,” incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to the Washington Examiner on Friday after being asked about press reports this week that President-elect Donald Trump would force out service members who identify as transgender.
“These unnamed sources are speculating and have no idea what they are actually talking about,” Leavitt added. “No policy should ever be deemed official unless it comes directly from President Trump or his authorized spokespeople.”
Roughly 15,000 members of the U.S. military identify as transgender and could be pushed out if Trump followed through on a statement he made during his first term, according to information that SPARTA Pride shared with Military.com this week.
Trump touted on Twitter in July 2017 that the United States would stop allowing transgender people in the military “in any capacity.”
That decree did not come to fruition. Trump blamed “tremendous medical costs and disruption” for not moving forward with this plan, but he later put forward a different policy that blocked people diagnosed with gender dysphoria from being admitted into the military unless they had already undergone surgery changing their gender at birth.
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Trump was sued, but the Supreme Court stood by the Trump administration after being challenged by human and civil rights groups.
Although Trump has not commented on how he would handle the matter in his second term, he vowed as a presidential candidate in February 2023 to “stop the chemical, physical and emotional mutilation of our youth.”