MAY 16, 2025 – Yesterday, military leaders across the force were issued guidance from the Defense Department on how to proceed with separating, voluntarily or involuntarily, service members with a diagnosis or history of, or exhibiting symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria.
The department has halted accessions of individuals meeting these criteria and has now directed the services to prepare to separate individuals already serving who meet the criteria.
“As [President Donald J. Trump] stated in his January executive order, expressing a false gender identity divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” said a senior defense official yesterday during a background conversation to discuss the new guidance. “Therefore, the department is moving forward with implementing its guidance to separate individuals impacted by this policy, either through a voluntary or involuntary separation process.”
As part of the guidance by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, service members on active duty and with gender dysphoria have until June 6, 2025, and service members in one of the reserve components have until July 7, to self-identify. Once that happens, the official said, military services have 30 days to begin separation proceedings.
According to the guidance, after the voluntary self-identification period, the military services will begin the process of involuntarily separating affected service members. The primary means of identification for the involuntary process will be through the Individual Medical Readiness Program and any military service-specific IMR guidance.
“Individual medical readiness programs are long-standing programs and policies in the department; they are not new, [and] they are not tied specifically to the implementation of this policy,” the official said. “In response to the need to ensure that service members remain qualified and fit for duty, [the department has long] used incremental medical evaluations that are done periodically — traditionally in annual health screening and assessment.”
The department will continue to use the individual medical readiness programs to ensure troops are qualified for service, the official said, adding that in the future, part of the medical readiness review process will ensure service members do not have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Service members affected by the policy are eligible for an array of benefits, including separation pay, which will be higher for those who self-identify and agree to a voluntary separation.
For example, the official said, an E-5 service member with 10 years of service might be eligible for as much as $101,000 of separation pay, while the same E-5 who is involuntarily separated would be eligible for only half of that amount.
The official said separation pay is affected by rank, time in service and whether a service member voluntarily or involuntarily separated.
“The department encourages currently serving service members that are impacted by the policy to elect to do the voluntary identification and voluntary separation process, which may afford certain benefits not available to those who go through the involuntary separation process,” the official said.
The department, citing an older study, estimates there were around 4,000 service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria at that time. However, the official said that the number may change due to accessions and departures since the report’s publication. Additionally, the department estimated that about 1,000 service members across the department would voluntarily self-identify.
By C. Todd Lopez, DOD News