Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Monday
ordered a 6-month study aimed at ending the Pentagon's current
regulations banning transgender people from serving openly in the
military, calling the current policy “outdated.”
“The Defense Department's current
regulations regarding transgender service members are outdated and
are causing uncertainty that distracts commanders from our core
missions,” Carter said in a statement. “At a time when our
troops have learned from experience that the most important
qualification for service members should be whether they're able and
willing to do their job, our officers and enlisted personnel are
faced with certain rules that tell them the opposite.”
A working group lead by Carter's
personnel undersecretary, Brad Carson, will spend the next six months
assessing the effects of ending the ban.
Carter said that the group will work
under the presumption that transgender individuals should be able to
serve openly “without adverse impact on military effectiveness and
readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments
are identified.”
While transgender people are not
allowed to serve openly in the military, an estimated 15,000
transgender people serve in the active-duty military and the
reserves.
According to the AP, chiefs of the
Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force “did not express opposition
to lifting the ban” during recent Pentagon meetings.