The Pentagon has not released data on the number of transgender people currently serving.

But Trump wants to take away opportunity. Before he retired two years ago, San Franciscan William Reed spent 33 years in the Army and Air Force. They are not symbols of anything, they are people. Different research teams have found structural aspects in the brains of transsexual individuals that are similar to brains of the sex they experience themselves to be, supporting the conceptualization of this condition as a medical one.

"It is also the latest effort by Trump and Mike Pence to undo our progress and drag LGBTQ people back into the closet by using our lives as political pawns", said the group's president, Chad Griffin.

"The Department will continue to focus on our mission of defending our nation and on-going operations against our foes, while ensuring all service members are treated with respect", she said in a statement.

"We believe that any such change in policy would be absolutely unconstitutional" Davidson said, "and it violates fundamental notions of fairness in the military". Ros-Lehtinen said all Americans should be allowed to serve in the military, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

I don't want to try to guess motives here, but I will say that there is another possibility, and it's happening right now in Texas.

The statement suggests that Mr Mattis was given no presidential direction on changing the transgender policy.

Transgender service men and women have been allowed to serve openly for about a year.

He was responding to a series of posts on Twitter by President Donald Trump on Wednesday announcing that transgender people would be barred from the military.

"More importantly, we should be thankful for any American who selflessly serves our country to defend our freedoms", Capito said.

President Donald Trump's decision to ban transgender service in the armed forces drove a wedge through military veterans in Congress, with one camp standing squarely behind the commander in chief and the other decrying his order as an ugly attack on dedicated troops. It's also related to the Republican Party's lack of interest in policy generally.

Israeli security forces and demonstrators had clashed regularly after the metal detectors were introduced to the site on 14 July.

"If trans people are discharged, lawsuits will follow", Culhane wrote. "Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming ..."

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Mr Trump had made "a military decision". Berlucchi said that HR Pride stands in direct opposition to any policy that discriminates or marginalizes any person, especially members of the transgender community.

How would transgender individuals affect military readiness?

The Trump administration was in the process of considering the final wave - allowing new transgender recruits to enlist - when Mr Trump made his announcement.

Jordan Blisk, a law student at the University of Colorado, served in the Air Force from 2011 to 2015 and publicly came out as transgender soon after leaving.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, even chairman General Joseph Dunford, have indicated they had no notice of the announcement. And if it's a choice between putting service members' careers at risk and subjecting his morally and practically unsound proposal to review and criticism, we're afraid we're pretty sure which path he'll take. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter and so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The military could not arbitrarily exclude Ashkenazi Jews because they have higher incidence of certain genetic birth defects, or African-Americans because of an elevated risk of sickle-cell disease.