New Delhi (NVI): US President Joe Biden has signed an executive order, repealing the Trump administration’s ban on transgender personnel serving openly in the US military, according to a statement by the White House.
While signing the executive order yesterday, Biden said that lifting the ban will make for a more effective force. Biden’s move was immediately welcomed by human rights groups.
The White House, in a statement yesterday, said that Biden’s order “sets the policy that all Americans who are qualified to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States should be able to serve,” reports NBC News.
“President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service, and that America’s strength is found in its diversity,” the White House was quoted as saying by the US media outlet.
Biden’s order “immediately prohibits involuntary separations, discharges, and denials of reenlistment or continuation of service on the basis of gender identity or under circumstances relating to gender identity,” the White House said.
NBC News reported that the order also directs the immediate “correction of” military records for any who had been affected by Trump’s ban.
In a series of tweets in July 2017, Donald Trump had announced that transgender people would be barred from serving in the US military “in any capacity,” reversing a policy decision announced by the Obama administration in June 2016.
-ARK
