US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum that directs the US military not to accept transgender men and women as recruits and halts the use of government funds for sex-reassignment surgeries for active personnel unless the process is already underway.
The memo, released by the White House, laid out in more detail a ban on transgender individuals serving in the US armed forces that Trump announced via Twitter last month, reversing a policy shift started under his predecessor, President Barack Obama.
In it, Trump directed the Department of defence and Department of Homeland Security to stop using government funds for sex-reassignment procedures unless it is necessary "to protect the health of an individual who has already begun a course of treatment to reassign his or her sex," the memo said.
- AAP