CRS Insights
What are the Department of Defense (DOD)
Policies on Transgender Service?
Kristy N. Kamarck, Analyst in Military Manpower (kkamarck@crs.loc.gov, 7-7783)
July 15, 2015 (IN10264)
Background
On July 13, 2015, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced that DOD will review its policies
on transgender service. As part of this announcement he issued two directives:
1. DOD will create a working group composed of military and civilian personnel to study
the policy and readiness implications of allowing transgender persons to serve openly.
2. The decision authority for administrative discharges for those diagnosed with gender
dysphoria or who identify themselves as transgender will be the Under Secretary of Defense
for Personnel and Readiness.
Secretary Carter also emphasized that the working group will "start with the presumption that
transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and
readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified."
The word "transgender" does not appear in the United States Code, the Code of Federal
Regulations, or in any DOD issuances. However, the term "transgender" is typically applied to
individuals who do not identify or conform to their physical gender at birth and may include, but
is not limited to, those who self-identify as transgender, transsexual, gender-queer, gender
nonconforming, or cross-gender. For the purpose of diagnosis, the American Psychiatric
Association classifies this condition as "gender dysphoria."
DOD currently treats the physical and psychological aspects of transgender conditions as
disqualifying conditions for new personnel accessions and for the discharge of existing
servicemembers.
Current DOD policies:
Prohibit the appointment, enlistment, or induction of those with a "current or history of
psychosexual conditions, including but not limited to transsexualism, exhibitionism,
transvestism, voyeurism, and other paraphilias," or those with "history of major abnormalities
or defects of the genitalia including but not limited to change of sex, hermaphroditism,
pseudohermaphroditism, or pure gonadal dysgenesis;"
Allow servicemembers to be separated administratively on the basis of a diagnosis of a
mental disorder. Mental disorders are further defined by military department regulations to
