Trump ignited a political uproar on Wednesday when he randomly announced via Twitter that transgender people would no longer be able to serve in “any capacity” in the United States military, without any explanation as to what would happened to the approximately 15,000 trans people already serving.
Now, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have come forward and clarified that the military does not consider Trump’s tweets to be orders.
“I know there are questions about yesterday’s announcement on the transgender policy by the President,” Marine General Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in an internal memo obtained by Politico.
“There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President’s direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidance.” When it comes to the thousands of transgender people who already serve in the military, Dunford added, “In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect . . . and will all remain focused on accomplishing our assigned missions.
Chief spokesperson for Secretary of Defense, JamesMattis, was reportedly not given much notice of Trump’s sudden announcement about the ban. CNN reports that the Joint Chiefs found out about the president’s order when everybody else did.
As of now, there is an obvious lack of communication between Trump and the military. While the Trump Administration has avoided traditional tactics since the beginning, the military must only rely on chain of command and formality to function properly.
Trump’s impulsive decision came after learning that the fight over gender reassignment treatments could potentially affect the funding for his border wall in an upcoming budget bill. Instead of addressing the issue, Trump decided to ban all transgender people from the military all together. Its suspected by administration officials that they will face a court challenge based on constitutional grounds.
