President Donald Trump finally got to implement a ban on transgender people in the military on Friday — nearly two years after he shot off tweets declaring the military “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity.”

Lt. Col. Carla M. Gleason, a Pentagon spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News, “We are pleased that we are able to create and implement our own accessions policy,” adding that she is “not aware of any anecdotes up to this point” of military applicants or service members being penalized under the new rules.

The Pentagon has used a rhetorical sleight of hand to insist the new policy doesn’t actually ban transgender people, arguing service members can simply pretend they’re not and serve as their birth sex.

But it is certainly a ban.

After prevailing in four court battles, at least for now, the Pentagon released a directive in March to prohibit service members who appear transgender or act transgender by failing to meet grooming, uniform, and other military standards for their birth sex. It also bans people from enlisting in the armed forces if they have transitioned from their “biological sex” to another gender. People in the military who came out as transgender between 2016 and today can remain in the forces under a grandfather clause.

“It’s absolutely not,” Gleason said when asked if it was a ban. She did say, however, that new recruits will be rejected if they’ve undergone a gender transition, that they cannot transition while in service, and they they must conform to the uniform and fitness standards of their birth sex.

Nevertheless, she said, “We are not going to hunt down transgender individuals and punish them for being transgender.”

A cavalcade of critics — including LGBT groups, medical leaders, and lawmakers — condemned the policy this week, calling it a “ban.” The American Medical Association rebuffed the Pentagon’s claim that gender transitions were a “deficiency.”

“The only thing deficient is any medical science behind this decision,” the AMA said in a statement. “The AMA has said repeatedly that there is no medically valid reason — including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — to exclude transgender individuals from military service. Transgender service members should, as is the case with all personnel, receive the medical care they need. There is a global medical consensus about the efficacy of transgender health care, including treatment for gender dysphoria.”

Trump had campaigned with the promise of being a champion for LGBT people, yet once in office, he carried out the agenda of the Evangelical Christian right with a rapid-fire assault on LGBT protections across several federal agencies.

Trump announced his military ban, which reverses a 2016 policy, in a series of tweets in July 2017 that accused transgender people of being a hardship on the armed forces, even though the previous administration found they weren’t. Trump’s administration assembled a so-called panel of experts to affirm the president's position.