Biden reverses Trump’s transgender military ban

On Jan. 20, Joe Biden was inaugurated into the presidential office. Shortly after his inauguration he proceeded to make many changes, including lifting the ban of transgender people serving in the military. This reversed the order in January 2019 when former President Donald Trump had passed a ban on transgender people serving in the military. Trump said he wanted to pass this ban because he thought that it would lessen the budget. Back then the budget was at $6.7 billion with only around 0.13 percent being spent on medical costs for trans people. 

When the ban was first put into place, Trump said that it was because of costs and the fact that they would have to take drugs to make a change in sex. 

“Look, massive amounts (of money) and also people going in and asking for the operation, you know the operation is $200,000, $250,000, and getting the operation, the recovery period is long and they have to take large amounts of drugs after that for whatever reason, but large amounts and that’s not the way it is,” said Trump stated on “Good Morning Britain” with Piers Morgan.

He continued to say that service members were not supposed to take drugs and that transgender people would have to “break rules and regulations” in order to do that after surgery.

President Joe Biden reversed this ban because he said that it was what former presidents have agreed with and that all he was doing was allowing all citizens to be able to serve in the military.

“This is reinstating a position that the previous commanders and, as well as the secretaries, have supported. And what I’m doing is enabling all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform,” Biden said just before signing the order.

With the ban now lifted, current acting members are now able to get the proper medical procedures needed and can openly serve as they want.