Trump rescinds Biden’s order to purge DEI of military

President Donald Trump has rescinded a Biden-era executive order allowing transgender people to serve in the military.

After taking the oath of office on Monday, the new president signed an executive order repealing former President Joe Biden’s order to allow all eligible Americans to serve in uniform in 2021.

On the campaign trail, Trump has promised to reinstate a ban on transgender troops that he imposed during his first term in office. In his graduation speech, he said that he officially recognizes that there are only two genders, male and female.

There are an estimated 9,000 to 14,000 transgender service members.

The new executive order was part of a quick series of steps Trump took to reverse Biden’s policies. In a statement, the White House called out Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the federal government, saying it has “undermined them by replacing hard work, benefit and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy.”

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The move is part of a campaign by Trump and Defense Department Secretary Pete Hegseth to eliminate any DEI practices in the U.S. military.

Last week, Trump tapped Matthew Lohmeyer to be the next secretary of the Air Force. In the year In 2021, Lohmeyer, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, was fired after calling out the military’s diversity programs and saying “Marxism” was in its ranks.

Lohmeier has self-published a book, “The Inevitable Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Victory and America’s Military Solution,” and has appeared on podcasts arguing that the military is being undermined by Marxism, pluralistic efforts, and critical race theory.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., applauded the move, saying, “It’s returning our military’s focus on lethality by ceasing to trigger DEI programs that already exist.”

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Monday’s action is part of a broader campaign by the Republican group to address gender change in the military. GOP lawmakers successfully included an amendment in the 2025 defense policy bill that would have banned irreversible transgender care for minors in the military health care system.

An order requiring the federal government to recognize only two genders prohibits the use of taxpayer funds for “transgender services” after allegations that some inmates are receiving state-funded sex-change services. Medicaid, in some states, currently covers such treatments.

Also, under that order, federal prisons and shelters for immigrants and rape victims are segregated by biological sex. Bans requirements for transgender people to use gender-appropriate pronouns in public institutions and workplaces. Trump’s team says these requirements violate First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion.

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The order does not mandate nationally which bathrooms transgender people can use or which sporting events they can participate in, although many states have passed laws in these areas.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.