Transgender Legal Rights Related to Military Service
Since the 1960s, transgender service members were banned from serving openly in the military, and that prohibition remained in place for decades. Although “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed in 2011 for lesbian, gay and bisexual service members, it was not repealed with respect to transgender military service members until 2016. The Trump administration then reverted to banning transgender Americans from openly serving in the military, but President Joseph Biden overturned the ban shortly after taking office in 2021.
Updating Your Military Records
Records with your former name or outdated gender designation may compromise your privacy or result in discrimination or harassment when you are job seeking or applying for benefits. Disclosure of a former name in many instances is a disclosure of a transgender status that can prejudice your rights in future situations. In some cases, it is wise to try to change your military records after you leave active duty service.
The Department of Defense doesn’t provide clear and straightforward guidance about how to update your information in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) or your DD214 Military Discharge Record. Each military department maintains its own Board for Corrections of Military Records and each has discretion to evaluate requested corrections.
You are allowed to submit a correction of records if it is necessary to remove an injustice or correct an error. Due to the prejudice that exists for transgender individuals seeking jobs or housing, a former name on a military record can present an injustice that gives rise to a reasonable request to update your name on your Military Discharge Record.
To update your Military Discharge Record you can submit a DD Form 149 along with supporting evidence related to your name change request. No specific requirements regarding what constitutes such evidence have been put forward, but documents that may be influential include: a court order recognizing your gender transition, a letter from a licensed provider indicating that you obtained appropriate clinical treatment for a gender transition, a state driver’s license, or a US Passport with your updated name and gender. Any or all of these can be submitted.
To update your name and gender in DEERS, the Service Project Office for your military department will need to submit a request to Defense Human Resources Activity for implementation. It will also need to submit evidence like the evidence described above for an update to your Military Discharge Record.
When the change requested is a gender marker change, you will need a signed statement given under penalty of perjury on official letterhead from a licensed physician that states the physician is your physician, and that you’ve had the appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition. The Service Project Office will receive a confirmation once the record is updated.
A person’s transgender status can also have implications for how the draft is implemented. The draft is administered by the Selective Service System. If you were assigned female at birth, you’re not required to register with the Selective Service irrespective of your current gender. However, when you apply for federal financial aid or loans as a man, you might be asked whether you are exempt from the draft and you will need to obtain a Status Information Letter. People who were assigned male at birth must register with the Selective Service in the thirty-day period after their eighteenth birthday. This group includes anyone who transitioned before or after that. Social Security and other databases are used by the Selective Service to determine who has been assigned male at birth.
