President Donald Trump says the U.S. military will no longer let transgender people serve in any capacity, reversing a policy former President Barack Obama’s administration announced a year ago.

In a string of Twitter comments, Trump said that “after consultation with my Generals and military experts,” he was ending acceptance of transgender people into the country’s armed forces.

“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you,” Trump wrote.

What happens now? 

The Rand Corporation think tank has estimated there are 2,500 transgender active duty personnel in the U.S. military and another 1,500 reserve transgender service members, but Trump did not say what would happen to them.

Defense officials say that as many as another 250 service members are believed to be transitioning to their preferred gender.

Trump’s decision on transgender personnel came a day ahead of a deadline for the military to update its medical regulations to accommodate them.

But the Pentagon appeared to be caught off-guard by Trump’s announcement and still was listing its timetable for review of its transgender policy on its website. Later, the Defense Department said it was referring all questions about the change in policy to the White House. The Pentagon said it would “continue to work closely with the White House to address the new guidance provided by the Commander-in-Chief” and then brief military officials.

Sharp criticism 

Trump’s action drew an immediate rebuke from a leading group supporting transgender rights and lawmakers who had favored last year’s policy change.

Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin said, “I know transgender service members and vets who have done more to serve their country than @realdonaldtrump has in his entire life.”

One of the country’s most prominent transgender activists, Chelsea Manning, an Army intelligence analyst freed recently from prison for leaking classified military documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, said, “So not only do you want to ban trans people, now you want to throw us in prison ?? sounds familiar.” But some other former military personnel took to social media in support of Trump’s decision.

A senior Republican lawmaker, Senator John McCain, held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam in the 1960s, chided Trump for making the announcement on Twitter and said his statement was unclear.

“The Department of Defense has already decided to allow currently-serving transgender individuals to stay in the military, and many are serving honorably today,” McCain said. “Any American who meets current medical and readiness standards should be allowed to continue serving.”

A Republican lawmaker, Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said, “No American, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, should be prohibited from honor + privilege of serving our nation.”

Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, said in a tweet, “Thousands of transgender service members defend our country. They’re patriots & should be applauded not discriminated against by Pres Trump.”

Another Democrat, Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, said, “The thousands of transgender Americans serving in our #military are courage incarnate. They are patriots. And they deserve better than this.”

Pentagon policy change 

In June 2016, former Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the Pentagon over the course of a year was ending what he said was its discriminatory policies against transgender people, starting with getting rid of a rule that transgender people could be involuntarily discharged from the military.

Carter, in announcing the decision, said he was “confident that we have reason to be proud today of what this will mean for our military – because it is the right thing to do, and it is another step in ensuring that we continue to recruit and retain the most qualified people – and good people are the key to the best military in the world. Our military, and the nation it defends, will be stronger.”

Under Carter’s order, the military had planned to start allowing transgender people to enlist in its armed forces this year, provided they had been “stable” in their preferred gender for 18 months.

  nation, Politics, rally, trump