Summary
Donald Trump plans to ban transgender individuals from military service shortly after his inauguration, reversing President Biden’s 2021 policy and expelling about 15,000 serving trans troops.
Critics, including advocacy groups and military experts, warn this move will exacerbate recruitment and retention challenges, harm unit cohesion, and create skill gaps amid existing shortfalls.
The order aligns with Trump’s broader anti-trans agenda, which includes banning gender-affirming care and restricting trans rights nationwide.
Legal challenges are anticipated as the military faces administrative and operational disruptions.
15,000? Is that density of trans people comparable to the density outside the Army?
Yeah.
According to this site: https://usafacts.org/articles/what-percentage-of-the-us-population-is-transgender/ about 1.14% of the US is trans.
And according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces there’s about 1.328 million active duty armed forces in the US.
1.14% of 1.328 million would be 15,139, so 15,000 is pretty much exactly in line with the typical stats. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it is in fact an estimate based on such data, rather than there being a survey ready-to-go which identifies how many such service members there are.
Makes total sense as an estimation. Thank you for the insight.