WASHINGTON – Today, news reports indicate that a new policy on transgender individuals serving in the military will be released by the Department of Defense next week. Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) made the following remarks regarding the announcement:
“If reports are correct, I believe Secretary Carter has put the political agenda of a departing administration ahead of the military’s readiness crisis. The force is exhausted from back to back deployments and spending their home-station time scrambling to get enough equipment and training before they deploy again. My focus is on helping the troops now - to be the most effective, deployable force possible. Consistent with that philosophy, when we learned DOD was looking at new policies on the service of transgender individuals, the Committee posed a number of questions to DOD. In particular, there are readiness challenges that first must be addressed, such as the extent to which such individuals would be medically non-deployable. Almost a year has passed with no answer to our 
questions from Secretary Carter. Our top priority must be warfighting effectiveness and individual readiness is an essential part of that.”
Jun 24, 2016
Press Release