Amid all the stormy revelations about porn stars and firings and attorney flight enveloping the White House, you may have missed the weekend news dump on Donald Trump's new transgender military ban. Similar to Trump's first and second Muslim ban attempt, the second iteration of the transgender ban isn’t any better than Trump’s original policy-by-tweet announcement. And yes, it's effectively an all-out ban, even if some transgender troops who are already serving will be allowed to continue for now.

The Pentagon report laying out the new transgender policy states: "Nothing in this policy precludes service by transgender persons who do not have a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria and are willing and able to meet all standards that apply to their biological sex.”

That is at best misleading and can likely be more accurately characterized as false. The new policy is tantamount to saying, nothing precludes transgender service so long as one isn't transgender. In fact, the new Defense Department guidelines require transgender troops to serve their country in a capacity that's consistent with the sex they were assigned at birth. As the DOD report puts it:

Transgender Persons Without a History or Diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria, Who Are Otherwise Qualified for Service, May Serve, Like All Other Service Members In Their Biological Sex . (emphasis added)

In other words, it does preclude transgender service. It's actually more insidious than the military’s defunct "don't ask, don't tell" policy that banned openly gay service. Under that law, lesbian and gay Americans could supposedly serve as long as they didn't admit to being gay—but it didn't ask them to turn straight. As National Center for Lesbian Rights legal director Shannon Minter told NBC: