As the Pentagon embarks on studying its ban on transgender service people, the White House declined to offer a full-throated defense of transgender rights, and instead focused on procedure.
Asked directly during Thursday’s press briefing if the president believes that transgender people have a right to serve in the military, press secretary Josh Earnest said that he “welcomed the decision” by the Defense Department to conduct a review of current policy, but stopped short of affirming equal treatment.
“The key here is implementing them,” Earnest said of possible reforms. “And implementing them in a way that the military can move forward with their critically important mission.”
He added that focusing on procedure is “not an irrelevant question.”
“When you’re the commander in chief, the practically of implementing this policy makes a difference,” Earnest told reporters.
When announcing the review last week, the Pentagon noted that it is approaching its study with a bias toward lifting the ban.
“The President certainly supports that approach,” Earnest said Thursday.
That administration’s stance—that lifting the ban depends on very real practical questions that are being examined by the military—could provide fodder for lawmakers who’ve already reacted skeptically to the Pentagon’s announcement.
“I had a 10-year-old — not my son, but a friend of mine’s grandson — say, ‘All right, which bathroom would they use?’” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told POLITICO this week, commenting that lifting the ban “wouldn’t work.”
