WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Ash Carter has ordered a six-month review of the military's policies banning transgender people from serving openly.

"The Defense Department's current regulations regarding transgender service members are outdated and are causing uncertainty that distracts commanders from our core missions," Carter said in a statement.

In announcing the review, Carter took a rather direct tone, noting, "[W]e have transgender soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines - real, patriotic Americans - who I know are being hurt by an outdated, confusing, inconsistent approach that's contrary to our value of service and individual merit."

A source familiar with the Pentagon's decisionmaking on the issue told BuzzFeed News recently that Carter met with President Obama last week to discuss the issue. Obama made a rare visit to the Pentagon on July 6, where he spoke at a press briefing about the current military campaign against ISIS.

In the Monday evening statement, Carter announced a six-month review to assess "the policy and readiness implications of welcoming transgender persons to serve openly." Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Brad Carson will head the group.

Notably, Carter said in his statement that the group "will start with the presumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified."

Secondly, Carson now will have the decision authority for discharges for those who identify as transgender or are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. In recent months, the service branches had raised the authority for such discharges from commanders in the field to more senior individuals within the respective branches' leadership.

The Associated Press reported earlier Monday, and BuzzFeed News confirmed, that the announcement was coming this week.

The White House provided no comment to BuzzFeed News last week in response to an inquiry about the matter, and a Pentagon spokesperson said only that there was "nothing to announce" at that time.

Last month, when Carter addressed an LGBT pride month event at the Pentagon, he discussed diversity at length but made no specific mention of transgender military service.

"Embracing diversity and inclusion is critical to recruiting and retaining the force of the future. Young Americans today are more diverse, open, and tolerant than past generations," he said. "If we're going to attract the best and brightest among them to contribute to our mission of national defense, we have to ourselves be more diverse, open, and tolerant, too."

The move comes as a handful of service members still serving have started to come out publicly as trans, including Jamie Lee Henry, a doctor and major in the Army's Medical Corps who spoke with BuzzFeed News in June about being a trans person serving in the military today.