A majority of Americans believe trans people should be allowed to serve in the armed services, new Gallup research has shown.
Although a slight fall from previous years, more than half the respondents (58 per cent) still said they openly support trans women and men serving in the military.
The most support came from Democrat voters, with 84 per cent backing the idea, while only 23 per cent of Republicans felt the same way, a fall from 43 per cent in 2019. Among Independents, backing fell from 78 per cent to 62 per cent during the same period.
This research comes after Trump signed an executive order laying the groundwork for reinstating a ban on trans people in the military after it was repealed by then president Joe Biden in 2021.
In his order, Trump claimed that service by troops who identify as a gender other than their biological one “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness, requiring a revised policy to address the matter.
The Department of Defense doesn’t publicly report how many trans people are serving in the military, and estimates vary widely. One 2014 report by the Williams Institute at UCLA found that about 15,500 transgender people were serving in the military.
#NoTransMilitaryBan!!!
