US general: No change to transgender policy, for now

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The Pentagon will not immediately change its policy after President Donald Trump said transgender service members would no longer be allowed to serve, the most senior U.S. military official said Thursday.

"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,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford wrote in a letter to the Pentagon's top officials that was published on Twitter.

"In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect," Dunford added.

Trump on Wednesday broke with a campaign pledge to protect LGBT rights, writing on Twitter the U.S. will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the military.

"Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender (individuals) in the military would entail," he said.

The announcement appeared to blindside the Pentagon, which referred all inquiries on the matter to the White House, where spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was unable to answer basic questions about the issue, including whether service members who are on active duty would be dismissed.

While Trump asserted in his decision that transgender service members saddle the Pentagon with "tremendous medical costs", the Rand Corporation estimates in a Pentagon-commissioned study that those costs would amount to between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually.

To put that in perspective, the U.S. military spends $41.6 million annually on Viagra, an erectile-dysfunction medication, according to the Military Times.

The total number of transgender members of the U.S. military varies wildly, with estimates ranging between 2,000 and 15,000.