When President Donald J.Trump initially tweeted out July 26 that he was issuing a ban against all transgender people serving in the armed forces, I assumed that as with most of Trump’s tweets, he’d stolen his phone out of Steve “Papa” Bannon’s top drawer (where it had been placed because Trump was on punishment) and sent out some reckless tweets before Papa returned.
Well, it seems that not only was the tweet—the first time this policy was ever mentioned was when Trump tweeted it—true, but an actual ban is working its way toward becoming an official military ban against transgender people, according to a White House memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
The memo indicates that the military is to stop admitting transgender people and that the Pentagon should weigh a transgender person’s ability to deploy before expelling them, the WSJ reports. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, the memo also instructs the Pentagon to stop payments on transgender service members’ medical treatments, CNN reports.
The Pentagon said in a statement Wednesday night that it “has not received formal guidance from the White House as a follow-up to the commander in chief’s announcement on military service by transgender personnel,” CNN reports.
“The [Defense] Department continues to focus on our mission of defending our nation and ongoing operations against our foes, while ensuring all service members are treated with respect,” the statement read, according to CNN.
The Pentagon told CNN that it would send out a formal announcement should guidelines be received, and the White House did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal and CNN.