Pete Hegseth was given two directives when President Trump chose him to be the Secretary of Defense – to be tough and to restore the warrior ethos to the military.
Accordingly, Hegseth issued a policy memorandum titled “Additional Guidance on Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness.” Most notably, it stated that service members with gender dysphoria are incompatible with military service and will be separated. This policy memorandum is also in line with President Trump’s Executive Order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” and the president’s Executive Order on “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness.”
Despite what the radical judges of the Robed Resistance believe, the United States military is not a social experiment. It’s the most lethal and accomplished fighting force and the greatest force for good in world history. It literally started our nation, saved our Republic, and saved the world from tyranny. All the while it recognized two genders. The only two genders that exist – male and female.
The success of the military depends on the ability of its service members to execute their missions and kill the enemy. The first requirement for execution is the ability of the military to recruit and retain members who are mentally, physically, and medically fit to serve. The DoD sets those standards through a variety of regulations but chief among them is Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 6130.03.
The rigorous medical standards required for selection and retention in the military have, for the most part, been noncontroversial over the years. For example, most Americans would agree that we should not be selecting those with chronic illnesses, permanent physical disabilities, or other physical ailments or sicknesses that would render a person unable to withstand the trauma of combat. Only a small fraction of service members will ever be exposed to combat, but there is a consensus that those who join the military should at least be medically and physically prepared for such an occurrence.
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In fact, DoDI 6130.03 on page 52, under the heading of “Disqualifying Conditions,” lists “History of gender dysphoria if: (1) Symptomatic within the previous 18 months; or (2) Associated with comorbid mental health disorders.” The Biden administration updated this DoDI in May of 2024. Where was the outcry from the legal establishment?
Gender dysphoria is also listed in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses, the main guide for U.S. mental health providers. It states that “The condition is associated with clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.”
Trump and Hegseth are well within their rights to ban gender dysphorics from military service. Banning applicants with gender dysphoria or separating those with the condition from military service is rationally related to the legitimate government interest of having a healthy and easily deployable military to fight and win the nation’s wars and defend the homeland. Therefore, the rational basis test applies when analyzing the president’s Executive Order and Hegseth’s memorandum.
There is no fundamental right to serve in the U.S. military. The military has all sorts of requirements, rules, and standards relating to the government’s legitimate interest in having a readily deployable force to fight our enemies. If an American wants to serve in the military, he or she must meet the standards – those who cannot are unfit to serve.
The president and SECDEF’s interest in having a healthy force ready to deploy anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice is rationally connected to a ban on those with gender dysphoria. Gender dysphorics are more likely to be in a non-deployable status for a variety of reasons. In a September 2020 handbook titled “Military Service by Transgender Persons and Persons with Gender Dysphoria: An Implementation Handbook” states, “Service members in your unit may be non-deployable for some periods during their gender transition process.” This non-deployable period can vary greatly depending on the surgery. Therefore, this detracts from a unit’s overall readiness and ability to deploy – making the connection between the policy and the government interest clear.
Challengers to the new ban may be able to point to examples of successful gender dysphoric individuals in the military, but they will not be able to show that the government does not have a legitimate interest in ensuring that service members are healthy and ready to deploy or that they don’t have the right to determine the standards of health that are necessary to serve and deploy.
Finally, the president historically has wide latitude to oversee and conduct military operations as the commander in chief. Given that these new policies do not violate a fundamental right of any American, that there is a legitimate government interest in ensuring a healthy and ready military force, and that there is a clear and rational connection between the government interest and the new policy, the Robed Resistance needs to back off and allow the president and the SECDEF to conduct military operations and keep our country safe.
James Fitzpatrick is the Director of the Center to Advance Security in America, a former official in the Trump 45 administration, and an Army veteran.
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