The Department of Defense on Wednesday announced formal policy updates allowing transgender troops to serve openly.

President Joe Biden in January signed an executive order reversing a ban on open transgender military service, fulfilling a campaign promise to reverse the ban implemented by former President Donald Trump.

Wednesday's announcement coincided with the International Transgender Day of Visibility.

(Related: Presidential first: Biden issues Transgender Day of Visibility proclamation.)

The new regulations take effect on April 30. They provide “access to the military in one's self-identified gender provided all appropriate standards are met” and “a path for those in service for medical treatment, gender transition, and recognition in one's self-identified gender,” the Defense Department said in a press release.

LGBT rights advocates cheered the news.

“Today, on International Transgender Day of Visibility, not only are thousands of active duty and future transgender military service members now able to serve openly as themselves for the first time in years, but tens of thousands more transgender veterans will be seen and recognized for who they are,” said Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). “President Biden has kept another promise to the LGBTQ community, ending the discriminatory and arbitrary prohibition on transgender military service started by the Trump administration. The end of this ban is a win for equality, and it will only serve to strengthen the military as a whole. We are thrilled to see the Biden administration continue their commitment to equality for all.”

GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said that transgender inclusion would make the United States military “more ready, more cohesive, and more equal.”

"President Biden and the Pentagon have moved swiftly and certainly to undo the discriminatory and unjust transgender military ban put in place by the former President," Ellis said in a statement. "This is a great day for America's service members, who deserve a commander-in-chief who understands the service and sacrifice that come with putting on the uniform of the United States military."

In 2016, the Obama administration lifted restrictions on transgender people serving openly in the armed forces. Those policies were never fully enacted. The following year, Trump reinstated the ban. Biden's order largely returns to policies announced in 2016.