Transgender service members will be removed from the military within 60 days unless they are granted a waiver demonstrating their support of “warfighting capabilities,” according to a policy memo issued late Wednesday by the Pentagon. 

The memo specifies how the Defense Department will carry out one of President Trump’s executive orders to prevent transgender troops from serving openly.

Trump’s Jan. 27 order, the subject of two federal lawsuits, claims that allowing transgender people to serve in the armed forces threatens its readiness and undermines unit cohesion. A 2016 RAND Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon found that allowing trans individuals to serve had no negative impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness or readiness. 

“Service by these individuals is not in the best interests of the Military Services and is not clearly consistent with the interests of national security,” Wednesday’s policy memo states. 

The memo suggests a history of gender dysphoria — severe distress that stems from a mismatch between a person’s gender identity and sex at birth — is incompatible with military service. 

It builds on a directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month to pause integrating new transgender recruits and suspend gender-affirming care for current service members. It states that the department recognizes only two sexes, male and female, in compliance with another Trump executive order and requires all service members to “only serve in accordance with their sex.” 

Service members must be addressed using pronouns consistent with their birth sex, according to Wednesday’s memo. 

Military personnel diagnosed with gender dysphoria may be retained “on a case-by-case basis,” provided there is a compelling government interest in doing so, the Pentagon said. But service members will have to prove they never took steps to transition genders and demonstrate 36 months of stability living in line with their birth sex “without clinically significant distress.” 

Opponents of Trump’s executive order have argued that, even with exceptions, preventing transgender troops from living as transgender is a ban on trans military service full stop. 

“Any policy that prevents transgender people from serving as transgender people — whether through an outright ban or through requirements to serve in one’s birth sex — is a ban, plain and simple,” Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, wrote Wednesday in an op-ed for The Hill. 

LGBTQ rights advocates slammed Wednesday’s policy memo as extreme and likely discriminatory. A federal judge this month said Trump’s order amounted to “unadulterated animus” backed up by little evidence. 

“The scope and severity of the ban are unprecedented. This is a complete purge of all transgender individuals from military service,” said Shannon Minter, an attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is representing the plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits challenging Trump’s order. 

“The administration has doubled down on betraying servicemembers who have faithfully followed the rules, met the same standards as others, and put their lives on the line to serve our country,” Minter said. 

In a statement, SPARTA Pride, an advocacy group for transgender service members, said active transgender troops “are fully qualified for the positions in which they serve.” 

“No policy will ever erase transgender Americans’ contribution to history, warfighting, or military excellence,” the organization — whose president, Emily Shilling, is a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits challenging Trump’s order — said Thursday. “Transgender service members have a unique fighting spirit and will continue to defend the constitution and American Values no matter what lies ahead.”