Biden administration reverses transgender military polices

People who identify as transgender can serve in the military and receive what the Defense Department calls medically necessary transition-related care, department spokesman John Kirby announced Wednesday.

How big of a change is this? President Joe Biden announced a review of the Trump administration’s rules on transgender individuals serving in the military just after taking office. Those regulations said troops must serve as their biological sex and could not have an active diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The new policies are largely a reset to Obama-era rules and will take effect in 30 days. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has also called for a reexamination of the records of service members who were discharged or denied reenlistment under the previous policy.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Kiley Crossland’s report in Relations on the Trump administration’s transgender troop policy.