US President Joe Biden on Monday signed an order seeking to repeal the ban on the transgender community joining the military. The ban was brought in by the Trump reign during his first year in office.
Biden’s order has set in motion a flurry of changes that “immediately prohibits involuntary separations, discharges, and denial of reenlistment of service based on gender identity or under circumstances relating to gender identity,” the White House said in a statement.
The executive order "sets the policy that all Americans who are qualified to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States should be able to serve," the statement added.
The Barack Obama administration, in which Biden was vice president, enabled transgender people to serve openly in the military in 2016.
But in 2017, Trump tweeted he would reverse the policy, saying he would "not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the US Military."
The Pentagon in 2019 implemented a policy meant to fulfill Trump's order that bars most transgender people from serving in the military unless they do so in their biological sex.
