Mattis freezes Trump ban on transgender troops pending review

Hey, we agree. Place tick mark in column.

You failed to give the details of "section 1(b)".

"(b)  Accordingly, by the authority vested in me as President and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States under the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including Article II of the Constitution, I am directing the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the U.S. Coast Guard, to return to the longstanding policy and practice on military service by transgender individuals that was in place prior to June 2016 until such time as a sufficient basis exists upon which to conclude that terminating that policy and practice would not have the negative effects discussed above.  The Secretary of Defense, after consulting with the Secretary of Homeland Security, may advise me at any time, in writing, that a change to this policy is warranted."

Prior to June 2016, transgender were not allowed to openly served in the military as gay was since 2011. So from my interpretation, transgender would be banned unless a study would indicate that it would be detrimental to the military's ability to operate efficiently. This would mean, a complete banned on transgender until a research is conducted and a finding that transgender would not impede military operation.

So if the research finds that transgender serving is detrimental to military readiness, the banned is justify and it will be perpetuated. However, if the research finds that transgender serving in the military has no impact than the banned would be lifted.

Cpl Tou Lee Yang - it's actually two different aspects related to studying the situation. The first is that the potus ordered a return to the old policy of no transgender soldiers allowed to serve. He then directed the secdef to develop an implementation plan to implement that decision. That plan is to include the secdef recommendation on what to do with current active duty transgender soldiers. That is due in Feb 2018. So that implementation plan is what Mattis is now bringing the experts together to develop.

A separate issue is that Trump says that if anytime in the future the secdef believes that allowing transgender troops to serve will not impact the military in any of the categories Trump listed, then he can go to Trump and recommend that the ban be dropped in total. But that's a separate thing from the plan the secdef owes the potus on how to reimplement the ban.

LTC (Join to see) - So basically it is a banned on those people (transgender) who want to join, except it won't kick those currently in, out. However, that does not mean it won't happen, since before 2016, transgender are not allowed to openly served in the arm forces.

Mattis said nothing will change which basically undermines that memorandum you stated.

While I hate people using the term "snowflake" derogatorily, I understand his sentiment. I've often found that, when posting to RP, if I use a non-Fox News source, the initial reaction to the story is "FAKE NEWS" or something along those lines. Some people only recognize their personal news site as reality - so, sometimes you have to go there to get people to come to the table and have a discussion.