Serving transgender troops have a reprieve until at least next February while a Defense Department panel decides how to implement the Trump White House ban. “Current transgender members will continue to serve throughout the military and continue to receive necessary medical treatment as prescribed by their medical provider,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning told reporters on Friday. “Transgender services members whose term of service expires while the interim guidance is in effect may at the service member’s request, re-enlist under existing procedures.” Manning said a panel led by the Deputy Secretary of Defense and Vice Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would decide how President Donald Trump’s August memo would be carried out, “consistent with military readiness, lethality, deployability and budgetary constraints and applicable law.” The panel will submit recommendations to Pentagon chief Jim Mattis no later than February 21, 2018. The ACLU has already launched a legal challenge of the ban, arguing that the ban violates the constitutional rights of transgender individuals by singling them out for unequal and discriminatory treatment.
—Kimberly Dozier
