Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

4. Department of Defense · Major

Reverse policies allowing transgender individuals to serve in the military

Done

104 4. Department of Defense

“Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military. Gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service, and the use of public monies for transgender surgeries or to facilitate abortion for servicemembers should be ended.”

What has happened

  1. Done

    The D.C. Circuit (Wilkins; Rogers concurring in part; Walker dissenting) affirmed the preliminary injunction for the named currently-serving plaintiffs, narrowed it from universal to those plaintiffs under Trump v. CASA, and vacated it as to those seeking to enlist. The panel held its decision pending further review and the ban remains in effect; the Status is unchanged pending Supreme Court action.

  2. Done

    The D.C. Circuit dissolved its administrative stay and granted a stay of the Talbott injunction pending appeal (Katsas, Rao; Pillard dissenting), so neither injunction was in force.

  3. Done

    The Department resumed. Secretary Hegseth's memorandum "Implementing Policy on Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness" recites the Supreme Court's stay and reinstates five policy memoranda by name — the 2025-02-07 Secretary of Defense memorandum, the 2025-02-26 USD(P&R) additional guidance, the M&RA clarifying guidance of 2025-02-28 and the retention-and-accession-waiver guidance of 2025-03-04, and the 2025-03-21 USD(P&R) "Military Department Identification" memorandum. It extends the self-identification window for voluntary separation to 2025-06-06 (Active) and 2025-07-07 (Reserve), orders immediate separation processing for those who self-identified before 2025-03-26, and directs involuntary separation processing once the window closes. Transgender individuals are barred from accession and retention and transition care is halted — the policies the Mandate names are reversed.

  4. Done

    The Supreme Court stayed the Shilling injunction pending appeal and certiorari (No. 24A1030), and the Talbott injunction was already administratively stayed; nothing was left in force against the policy.

  5. Blocked

    Judge Reyes (D.D.C.) preliminarily enjoined the order and the Hegseth policy nationwide in Talbott v. Trump; the D.C. Circuit administratively stayed that injunction on 2025-03-27, but on the same day Judge Settle (W.D. Wash.) entered a second nationwide injunction in Shilling v. United States.

  6. Partially done

    The implementing policy, issued by the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (Darin Selnick, performing the duties) rather than by the Secretary: "Additional Guidance on Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness", thirteen pages with a policy attachment. Applicants and serving members with a current diagnosis or history of, or symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are disqualified from military service; a history of cross-sex hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery is disqualifying; waivers are case-by-case only on a compelling government interest plus 36 consecutive months of stability in the member's sex and no attempt to transition. It cancels DoDI 1300.28 ("In-Service Transition for Transgender Service Members") and three health-affairs gender-dysphoria guidance documents outright, bars DoD funds for sex-reassignment and genital-reconstruction surgery and newly initiated cross-sex hormone therapy, and requires the Services to identify affected members within 30 days and to begin separation within 30 days of identification, with a 30-day window from signature to elect voluntary separation at twice the involuntary rate. Policy rescissions and updates were to be complete by 2025-06-25.

  7. Partially done

    Secretary Hegseth's own memorandum, "Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness": "Effective immediately, all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused, and all unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for Service members are paused" — the footnote defines those as genital reconstruction, gender-affirming or sex-reassignment surgery and newly initiated gender-affirming hormone therapy. It delegated USD(P&R) authority to issue implementing guidance outside the normal DoD issuance process. The Quote's public-monies-for-transgender-surgeries limb is delivered here as a pause; serving members had not yet been separated.

  8. Partially done

    The Quote's abortion limb was delivered first, and by a different instrument. Acting USD(P&R) Darin Selnick's memorandum "Non-Covered Assisted Reproductive Technology", implementing EO 14182 (Enforcing the Hyde Amendment), states that "taxpayer dollars shall not be used to fund, promote, or reimburse Service members or dependents for elective abortion-related travel expenses"; it rescinds the 2023-02-16 USD(P&R) memorandum "Administrative Absence for Non-Covered Reproductive Health Care" effective immediately and directs the Director, Defense Human Resources Activity to rescind the travel and transportation allowances for non-covered reproductive health care at paragraph 033113 of the Joint Travel Regulations. The 2022 policy the Mandate is aiming at is gone. Access to non-covered assisted reproductive technology such as IVF is expressly preserved by the same memorandum.

  9. Attempted

    Executive Order 14183 declared that a gender identity divergent from sex is inconsistent with military service, revoked the Biden order permitting transgender service, and gave DoD 60 days to issue policy; no one had yet been separated.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The URL this log used to carry for the implementing memorandum was invented, and it does not exist. media.defense.gov/2025/Feb/26/2003654290/-1/-1/1/PRIORITIZING-MILITARY-EXCELLENCE-AND-READINESS.PDF is not a blocked page and not a real document; a check of 2026-09-06 found it returns “not found”. The real instruments were found through war.gov’s own guidance index, Guidance for Federal Personnel and Readiness Policies (87 PDFs), and read on 2026-09-06. Two corrections fall out of reading them:
    • The Secretary’s memorandum is dated 2025-02-07, not 2025-02-26, and it does the pausing (accessions, transition procedures). The 2025-02-26 document is the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness’ “Additional Guidance”, signed by Darin Selnick performing the duties of the office; it is the one that disqualifies, cancels DoDI 1300.28 and sets the separation clock. Calling it “Secretary Hegseth’s implementing policy” conflated the two. Both are now separate events with their own Primary.
    • The NPR account of 2025-02-27 that had been standing in for the memorandum is retired; the memoranda carry every fact it did, in the Department’s own words.
  • The abortion limb is no longer a bare lead. The instrument is not a “DoD memo rescinding the 2022 travel policy” as the old note guessed but USD(P&R)‘s 2025-02-03 “Non-Covered Assisted Reproductive Technology” memorandum, which rescinds the 2023-02-16 administrative-absence policy and orders the Joint Travel Regulations allowance struck. It is now the 2025-02-03 event. Term count over the complete text of the 2025-02-26 guidance: “abortion” 0, “Hyde” 0 — the two limbs travel on different paper, which is why searching the transgender-service memoranda for the abortion clause returns nothing.
  • Three further PMER instruments were found and are not cited as Evidence: USD(P&R) “Military Department Identification”, 2025-03-21 (media.defense.gov/2025/May/16/2003716691/…); “Implementation Guidance”, 2025-05-15 (media.defense.gov/2025/May/15/2003715662/…); and the M&RA clarifying and waiver memoranda of 2025-02-28 and 2025-03-04 on the same war.gov index.
  • Shilling v. United States, W.D. Wash. 2:25-cv-00241 (filed 2025-02-06; https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69617888/shilling-v-united-states-of-america/) and 9th Cir. 25-2039 (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69811434/shilling-et-al-v-trump-et-al/): docket pages cannot be read. The 2025-03-27 injunction is known from the Supreme Court’s stay order, which recites it, and from the 2025-05-08 memorandum, which recites the stay of it. Off-allowlist reporting says the 9th Circuit heard argument in October 2025 and a trial is set for November 2026; no merits ruling was found.
  • Talbott: the district court certified a class of currently-serving transgender members on 2026-06-30 (militarytimes, nclrights — off allowlist; leads). DOJ said it would seek Supreme Court review of the June 1 decision; a docket filing dated 2026-07-16 discusses a stay application (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.41889/gov.uscourts.cadc.41889.2183623.0.pdf, not read). No Supreme Court order on Talbott was found on supremecourt.gov or SCOTUSblog as of 2026-08-27. If the injunction for serving members takes effect, the Status would then be mixed (accessions barred, retention enjoined for the class).
  • Ireland v. United States, Fed. Cl. 25-1921, opinion of 2026-07-22 (https://ecf.cofc.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2025cv1921-21-0): seventeen Air Force/Space Force members made ineligible by EO 14183 sued over rescinded early-retirement orders — a downstream pay dispute, not a challenge to the policy; recorded here as context only.
Action
rescind
Object
policies permitting transgender military service and related funding
ID
176