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United States President Donald Trump has announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military, writing on Twitter that the US armed forces “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military [sic] would entail”.
The policy change has seemingly caught the US military off guard – at the time of writing, the transgender policy on the Department of Defense’s website states that “transgender Service members may serve openly, and they can no longer be discharged or otherwise separated from the military solely for being transgender individuals”. Transgender service members and veterans, LGBT rights advocates, civil liberties groups, Democrat politicians and celebrities excoriated the announcement.
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Alex McKinnon, The Saturday Paper
