Biden Just Lifted This Military Ban Put In Place By Trump

In his first week in the Oval Office, not only has President Joe Biden had the place redecorated, but he's also been changing some of the policies made by the Trump administration. One of the latest executive orders undoes the ban on transgender people serving in the military (via ABC).

Part of the order states, "It is my conviction as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces that gender identity should not be a bar to military service. Moreover, there is substantial evidence that allowing transgender individuals to serve in the military does not have any meaningful negative impact on the Armed Forces."

The announcement was met with joy on Twitter. One user tweeted, "Awesome! If anyone regardless of how you identify wants to go to the front lines and fight for my right to sit in my PJ's talking s*** on Twitter, I applaud you!" Another wrote, "No one with ability and desire to serve should ever have been barred in the first place. I'm hoping someday the disabled can break this barrier, too. My sincere thank you to every trans person who has volunteered to serve our country – I can't imagine it's an easy path to take."

The newly confirmed Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, who was with Biden for the signing along with Vice President Kamala Harris, released a statement that read, "The United States Armed Forces are in the business of defending our fellow citizens from our enemies, foreign and domestic. I believe we accomplish that mission more effectively when we represent all our fellow citizens. I also believe we should avail ourselves of the best possible talent in our population, regardless of gender identity. We would be rendering ourselves less fit to the task if we excluded from our ranks people who meet our standards and who have the skills and the devotion to serve in uniform."

In a 2017 series of tweets, Trump announced his administration's ban on transgender people serving in the military, which was, according to The Atlantic, just a year after a study that showed the impact of their openly serving would have little impact on the military. Trump referred in his tweets to the potential costs. At the time, it was pointed out by some that the costs were negligible, since in 2014, the military spent, according to Military Times, $84.24 million total on erectile dysfunction prescriptions; 10 times more than the amount the 2016 study determined. From that report, "The implication is that even in the most extreme scenario that we were able to identify ... we expect only a 0.13-percent ($8.4 million out of $6.2 billion) increase in health care spending" (via The Washington Post).