Trump is Looking to Boot Transgender Troops from the Military. Here's Why That's Complicated

President Donald Trump has launched his second bid to oust all transgender troops from the military, and once again it will be headed to the courts to sort it out.

Although the new order will affect only a tiny fraction of America's 2.1 million service members, it has taken on oversized importance to Trump and his administration, who see transgender forces as a sign the military is "woke" or not focused on training and winning wars.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, before he took the job, wrote in his book "War on Warriors" that "for the recruits, for the military, and primarily for the security of the country, transgender people should never be allowed to serve. It's that simple."

Trump's order to push out transgender troops, issued late Monday night, was instantly condemned by an array of activist groups as exceptionally egregious and ultimately harmful to military readiness. They say transgender people have been serving successfully for years, including openly on and off for the past decade.

Here's a look at what it all means and the confusing duel over the ban for the past decade.

What Does the Order Say?

Trump's order essentially says that anyone who is diagnosed with gender dysphoria – the unease someone has when their assigned sex and gender identity don't match – cannot serve in the military. It gives the defense secretary 60 days to update the medical standards for enlistment and re-enlistment to reflect that change. And it gives Hegseth 30 days to lay out how he plans to implement it all.

According to the order, "expressing a false 'gender identity' divergent from an individual's sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service." It says the hormonal and surgical needs involved in taking on a different gender identity "conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle."

It concludes that, "A man's assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."

The order also zeroes in on the heady bathroom issue.

On his first day in office Trump issued an executive order that he said would "restore biological truth" to the federal government by eliminating the word "gender" and replacing it with "sex." He said the federal government will only recognize people based on their sex at the time of conception based on their "reproductive cell."

His latest order expands on that, saying the military will "neither allow males to use or share sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for females, nor allow females to use or share sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for males."