by Written by Aamna Mohdin   The Quartz, March 24, 2018

The White House has followed through on Donald Trump’s controversial pledge and formally banned transgender people from serving in the military.

A memo (pdf) from the secretary of defense released late Friday night notes that trans people are “disqualified from military service except under certain limited circumstances.” The memo did not clarify what constitutes as an “exception,” but it did state that the secretary of defense and secretary of homeland security “may exercise their authority to implement any appropriate policies concerning military service by transgender individuals.”

The White House believes that troops with a history or diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” end up putting “considerable risk to military effectiveness and lethality.” The ban follows Trump’s erratic announcement in July 2017, when through a series of Tweets he stated his intention to ban transgender individuals from serving in any capacity in the US military. He claimed that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption” of trans service members. His Tweets had reportedly caught the Pentagon leadership off guard.  READ it Here