SCOTUS upholds Trump’s ban on trans troops. What does it mean for Fort Benning?
A decision from the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday allowed President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender military members to be enforced, according to multiple media reports, and now Fort Benning is waiting on guidance to proceed.
Fort Benning, just south of Columbus, is the sixth-largest military installation in the U.S. where nearly 80,000 train each year, according to the U.S. Army website. The base needs information from the Department of Defense regarding carrying out Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order, according to Joe Cole, a public affairs officer at the base.
Fort Benning officials weren’t able to provide data on transgender military members at the base prior to publication. Numbers released by the military show 4,240 people in the military — out of about 2 million total — have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, the New York Times reported in February.
Trump’s order, titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” says, “Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”
The order also says that adopting a gender identity “inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
“When these decisions come down they have to be put into higher guidance that comes down through DOD, and right now we are standing by to implement the guidance as provided by DOD. So, as soon as we get it, we will implement it,” said Jennifer Gunn, director of public affairs for the Maneuver Center of Excellence.
No exact timeline was given on when the guidance would arrive.
“What I would say as far as timeline is all of the executive orders and the guidance that has flowed from them has come, generally speaking, you know, expeditiously,” Cole said.
A Feb. 28 news release from the department said service members with gender dysphoria would soon be processed for separation following a Feb. 26 department policy memorandum.