By Tyler Arnold
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 3, 2024 / 11:35 am
When President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025, the incoming administration has the opportunity to reverse the promotion of gender ideology and abortion at the Department of Defense (DOD), according to those closely watching these issues.
“[We hope] that President-elect Trump and his appointees will follow the law, promote health, and stop censorship,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Matt Bowman told CNA.
“The Biden-Harris administration radicalized the federal bureaucracy to promote abortion and dangerous gender procedures and suppress opposition to their agenda,” Bowman said. “We hope President-elect Trump’s appointed leaders will restore the rule of law, respect biological reality, and stop targeting free speech.”
Under President Joe Biden’s administration, the DOD has used taxpayer money to fund gender transitions and abortion-related travel expenses for service members and their families.
During Biden’s presidency, the DOD also reversed a policy that restricted people with gender dysphoria from serving in the military. In addition, officials encouraged staffers to use gender-neutral language and pronouns that match a person’s self-asserted gender identity, even if they do not match his or her biological sex.
Trump announced he would nominate Pete Hegseth — a military veteran, Fox News host, and former executive director of Concerned Veterans for America — to serve as secretary of defense, which leads the DOD. This position requires a Senate confirmation.
Hegseth has frequently criticized what he calls “woke” policies in the DOD, including policies related to gender ideology. Trump has said he intends to fire “woke” military generals. Hegseth is also pro-life and has referred to abortion in the United States as “generational genocide.”
Promotion of gender ideology
Under current DOD policy, the Military Health System covers health care services through its TRICARE program, which serves about 9.5 million people, according to the Congressional Research Service. This includes service members, military retirees, and dependents covered through the health care program.
Both service members and dependents can receive some transgender services through this taxpayer-funded program, including transgender drugs. Although TRICARE does not cover transgender surgeries, the DOD can pay for such surgeries for service members through the taxpayer-funded Supplemental Health Care Program.
Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ended a rule from the first Trump administration that prohibited most people with gender dysphoria from serving in the military. In 2023, he issued a rule that service members should be referred to with gender-neutral pronouns such as “themself” when receiving military awards, although he later walked back that policy.
Bowman said the incoming Trump administration should reverse the promotion of “dangerous gender procedures” and “mandating false pronouns,” telling CNA that DOD policies “should not be used to attack the life, health, and speech of innocent citizens.”
In 2019, the Trump administration issued a report on gender dysphoria in the military, which noted that people who identify as transgender “suffer from high rates of mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders.” It also found that service members with gender dysphoria are nine times more likely to have mental health encounters and eight times more likely to attempt suicide.
According to the report, transgender surgeries will put a person on limited duty for more than five months while recovering. The report warned that allowing people with gender dysphoria who are seeking surgery or have undergone surgery to serve in the military would “undermine readiness, disrupt unit cohesion, and impose an unreasonable burden on the military that is not conducive to military effectiveness and lethality.”
Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, said in 2017 that “military readiness is of utmost importance to our servicemen and women” but went further, saying that the report did not “address the essence of the issue — the dignity of the human person.”
“Sexual orientation and gender identity issues reflect a rapidly increasing and incorrect societal attitude that individual behaviors in life should pursue immediate and personal choices rather than eternal truth,” Broglio said.
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“In extending the maternal care of the Church to the faithful of this archdiocese, it is opportune to reaffirm that personal choices in life, whether regarding the protection of the unborn, the sanctity of marriage and the family, or the acceptance of a person’s God-created biology, should be made not solely for a penultimate reality on his earth but in anticipation of the ultimate reality of sharing in the very life of God in heaven,” said Broglio, who also serves as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Funding abortion travel
Under Biden’s administration, the DOD also established a policy to pay for travel expenses and provide paid time off for members of the military who are obtaining an abortion. The policy also provides coverage for travel expenses for spouses and dependents of a military member who is seeking an abortion.
Although the Hyde Amendment, which has been in effect since 1980, prohibits the federal government from funding abortion in most cases, it does not explicitly ban funding for travel related to abortion or paid time off.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told CNA that Trump should reinstate “the commonsense policies” of his first administration and reverse what she called “the Biden-Harris administration’s unprecedented violation of longstanding federal laws.”
“Among the actions he can take, we trust that he will stop the illegal funding of abortion through the Veterans Administration and Department of Defense, start enforcing nondiscrimination laws again so Americans are never forced to participate in abortion, reinstate the Protect Life Rule at home and abroad to stop funneling tax dollars to the abortion industry, and free the patriots unjustly put in prison for peacefully protesting the killing of unborn children,” Dannenfelser said.
Republican lawmakers sought to prohibit the funding of travel for abortions through the National Defense Authorization Act in 2023 but were unsuccessful.
In April 2023, Broglio called the policy “morally repugnant and incongruent with the Gospel, which the faithful are commissioned to share throughout the world.”
“I implore the faithful of this archdiocese to continue to advocate for human life and to refuse any participation in the evil of abortion,” Broglio said. “As Pope Francis instructs, our defense of the innocent unborn must be ‘clear, firm, and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development.’”
