Democrat Nancy Pelosi has called for the US military to reform regulations which ban transgender people from serving openly.

Despite gay people being able to serve openly from 2011, when Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, transgender people remain actively banned from the US Military by its health code.

The regulations, put in place in the 1970s, ban anyone with “current or history of psychosexual conditions including but not limited to transexualism, exhibitionism, transvestitism, voyeurism and other paraphilias” from serving.

Critics have condemned the outdated regulations, which do not reflect modern medical attitudes towards transgender people.

Ms Pelosi, the former Speaker, remains the highest-ranking female politician in American history.

She confirmed her support for transgender people in the military, with a spokesperson telling the Washington Blade: “Leader Pelosi believes there is no place for discrimination in the US Armed Forces, including on the basis of gender identity.”

Mara Keisling of the National Centre for Transgender Equality said: “Military service for transgender people is right morally and, very importantly, it’s right for military readiness.

“Leader Pelosi is correct of course. The outdated, discriminatory ban on open trans service is bad for trans people, bad for military readiness, and bad for America.

“We are 100 percent confident that open trans military service is as inevitable as the military bureaucracy that seems to have stalled progress once again.”