As they prepare for their annual gay pride reception at the White House on Wednesday, LGBT rights groups have one urgent agenda item for President Barack Obama: End the ban on transgender people serving in the military.

LGBT groups credit Obama with presiding over a major expansion of rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans since he took office in 2009, including the end of the military’s Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell policy on gay service members.


But there’s still a fundamental policy that needs attention, LGBT groups say: The country’s single biggest employer of transgender Americans — the U.S. military — can legally discriminate against them, and Obama’s administration can fix that on its own. Ending restrictions on transgender servicemembers is at the top of the shrinking list of executive actions the president can take, they say.

“This is the new Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell,” said Sue Fulton of SPARTA, an organization of transgender servicemembers, vets and allies. “Transgender service people are told they can serve as long as they don’t attempt to be recognized as who they are or to get medically necessary care.”

For Obama, the issue represents another chance to cement his legacy as a leader who removed discriminatory barriers. But after the long, uneasy battle over overturning Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell, there are some risks for the president if he is seen as pushing the military beyond its comfort level with transgender troops.

The Williams Institute, a research center on sexual identity and public policy at the University of California-Los Angeles, estimated that about 15,500 transgender people are currently serving in the Armed Forces, based on a study of Census data and a 2008 survey of more than 6,500 people who identify as transgender in the U.S. In most cases, going public about their gender identity would bring on discharge proceedings.

Obama hasn’t taken an official position on the question, but activists say he’ll be sending a positive signal on Wednesday when — for the first time — he’ll host two active-duty transgender service members, along with four trans vets, at the White House gay pride reception.

Activists say he’s following the playbook he used to end Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell, the Clinton-era policy that allowed gay servicemembers to remain on active service as long as they kept their sexual orientation private. Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell was a law enacted by Congress and needed to be overturned legislatively, but the Obama administration pushed it along by drawing attention to lesbian, gay and bisexual troops who were serving honorably, helping debunk fears that allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military would cause upheaval or low morale. While the transgender policy is different — it’s part of the Pentagon’s medical policies — advocates still see a role for the president in reassuring the military bureaucracy and the American public.

The push for similar status for transgender servicemembers ramped up in February when Defense Secretary Ash Carter, just days on the job, responded to a question about the possibility of transgender troops by saying he’s “open minded” about people’s personal lives. He added, “I don’t think anything but their suitability for service should preclude them.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest called Carter’s comments “welcome,” adding that Obama “agrees with the sentiment that all Americans who are qualified to serve should be able to serve.”

But Earnest said policy changes would be up to the Defense Department – a line he repeated when asked about the matter on Tuesday.

A Pentagon spokesman says there’s no “specific review” of the military’s transgender policy. But a “routine, periodic review” of policies related to medical standards for military service began in February and is likely to take a year or 18 months. The last such update took place in 2011.

Since then, the medical diagnosis for transgender people has changed: In 2012, the American Psychiatric Association replaced “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria,” a change in terminology that removes the implication of mental illness. The American Medical Association has deemed therapy, hormones and surgery to be “medically necessary” treatments for transgender patients since 2008. Earlier this month, the AMA passed a resolution saying that there’s “no medically valid reason” to exclude them from military service.

Advocates are quick to note that 18 countries, including top allies like Australia, Israel, Canada and the United Kingdom, let transgender troops serve openly.

Some LGBT advocates are starting to get impatient with Carter, who has been silent on the matter since February. But they see signs that the military is laying the groundwork for a broad policy shift: Both the Air Force and the Army in recent months have said that only top brass – not lower level commanders – can approve removing a transgender service member, and the Air Force has recently said that coming out can’t, on its own, be grounds for discharge. The Pentagon made similar changes for lesbian and gay troops as it prepared for the Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell repeal.

The Navy and Marines, however, haven’t updated their policies, and even in the Army and Air Force, a transgender person’s fate can depend on their unit.

The patchwork of standards will be on display at the White House reception.

Air Force Senior Airman Logan Ireland entered the military as a woman, but he’s been treated as male by his commanders in Afghanistan, and he received special permission to wear the male dress uniform at the White House.

His fiancée, a trans woman and Army Corporal named Laila Villanueva, hasn’t gotten that dispensation. She’ll be in civilian clothes, according to SPARTA. The couple were featured in a New York Times opinion documentary earlier this month.

Activists reason that the inconsistency, if anything, will force the Pentagon’s leadership to take action one way or the other, and soon.

As commander-in-chief, Obama could certainly weigh in, too, but the White House ruled out any policy announcements at the reception. At least for now, advocates said, it makes sense for Obama to stick to highlighting transgender service without forcing the point.

“I think he’s trying to be fair and give some time to the new secretary, to have him get there on his own, and I think he will,” said one reception guest, Sheri Swokowski, a retired Army colonel and board member of the Transgender American Veterans Association.

LGBT candidates are actively calling on Obama to be more aggressive in enacting some priorities, especially in the health care realm. The Human Rights Campaign’s 2015 checklist – last issued in 2008 — outlines the remaining steps that the administration can take without Congress, like issuing regulations to back up Obamacare’s ban on discrimination for sexual orientation in health care and insurance, and designating the LGBT population as “medically underserved.”

On Tuesday, the administration announced that federal employee health plans can’t exclude coverage for gender transition. That follows up on a decision last year by Medicare to cover therapy, hormones and surgery – in response to an appeal by a 74-year-old transgender Army vet.

The Defense Department’s TRICARE and the Veterans’ Health Administration also don’t cover gender transition; trans advocates have said the right to serve openly needs to come first.