When President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, he may quickly reverse military policies regarding abortion and transgender service members, though recent pushes in Congress to improve military pay and quality of life will likely continue, according to a leading national security expert.
First up might be a policy put in place in 2022 by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III that provides paid leave and reimburses transportation costs for troops who travel out-of-state for an abortion and other reproductive care such as in vitro fertilization, though the service members pay for the actual health care service themselves.
The policy was put in place in response to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade earlier that year, which led to abortion bans in roughly a dozen states and restrictions in more, including several with large military bases.
Austin argued the overturning of Roe v. Wade would harm readiness, recruiting, and retention for service members wanting to start a family or avoid starting a family at the wrong time. The policy, however, was bound by two laws, explained Katherine Kuzminski, Deputy Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security. The first, Section 1093 of Title 10 of U.S. Code, prohibits abortions from being performed on military bases except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger. The second is the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortions.
“That’s how this travel policy came about, which is ‘we’ll pay for your travel if you’re in a state that doesn’t allow abortion’,” Kuzminski explained. But cementing that policy with a law would have required an act of Congress, a tall order given the political debate around the issue.
“This was a DOD pronouncement through the administration, it wasn’t anything that was solidified in law,” she explained. “It lacked permanence.”
Voters on Nov. 5 lifted abortion bans in Missouri and Arizona and passed new protections in states such as Colorado and Montana, but full or partial bans remain in place in other states such as South Dakota, Florida, and Nebraska, which all host Air Force bases.
In October, Trump said he would veto a federal abortion ban in favor of letting states decide their own policies, though historically the President-elect has taken anti-abortion positions. In Congress, many of Republicans closely tied to Trump blasted Austin and President Joe Biden for the abortion travel policy.
Despite the heated political debate around the policy, the Pentagon said in March that troops only took advantage of it 12 times across the military at the cost of about $45,000 between June and December 2023.
Still, some experts such as Tony Johnson, president and CEO of the Truman National Security Project, say access to reproductive care is a quality-of-life issue that needs to be prioritized.
“I think to set that aside nonchalantly is a mistake and it really impacts readiness,” said the retired Navy officer. “If service members or their spouses are having pregnancy issues or any other reproductive issues, they are worried about the safety of their families, and you can’t focus on your job if you’re afraid something bad is happening at home.”
Butch Bracknell, a retired Marine judge advocate and national security expert, noted that if troops want access to reproductive care, they won’t want to be assigned to bases in states that ban it. He said access to that care makes California a much more appealing duty station for his daughter, who is in the Navy, than other states with more restrictive reproductive care policies.
Transgender Troops
Another policy that seems likely to change during Trump’s second term is whether transgender people can serve openly in uniform. In 2016, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter lifted a ban on transgender service across the military, but Trump reimplemented it in 2017 during his first term. At the time, House lawmakers were debating whether or not the Department of Veterans Affairs should cover gender-affirming care for transgender veterans, Kuzminski explained.
“Trump jumped in with a tweet and said ‘I’m banning all transgender service members,’ which really upped the stakes, because the debate on the Republican side at that point was not banning transgender individuals from service,” she said. “He kind of came off the top rope.”
The ban was lifted again under Biden in 2021, but Trump has opposed transgender troops serving openly throughout his reelection campaign, which raises the likelihood of another ban. Another possibility might be that Trump does not ban transgender troops from serving openly, but the Pentagon has no liability or responsibility to provide gender-affirming care, Kuzminski said.
From 2016 to 2021, the Pentagon spent $15 million to treat transgender troops: $11.5 million for psychotherapy and $3.1 million for surgeries, according to data obtained by Military.com. The military spends more than $6 billion on health care for active-duty troops.
A DOD-commissioned study conducted by the RAND Corp. in 2016 estimated health care costs for transgender troops would be about $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually—which would be just a 0.04-0.13 percent increase.
Trump has argued that the cost of providing gender-affirming care is exorbitant for a procedure that validates service member’s sexual identity. However, previous news reports found that Pentagon spent more—$41.6 million—every year on Viagra, another treatment related to service members’ sexual identity.
It is not clear exactly how many transgender troops currently serve: the military has cited a 2016 survey where just under 9,000 service members identified as transgender, while a research institute pinned the number at just under 15,000. Either number is a fraction of the roughly two million people in uniform, but that fraction deserves a chance to serve, argued Johnson.
Pay and More
Earlier this spring, the House Armed Services Committee published a Quality of Life report recommending a host of changes to address food insecurity, insufficient housing allowance, dilapidated barracks, child care shortages, long wait times for medical appointments, and other day-to-day issues service members face. Those recommendations, including a 15 percent pay raise for junior enlisted troops, were included in the House version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.
President Biden’s administration opposed the pay raise, which Congress estimates would cost $24 billion over five years, until the Pentagon finishes its quadrennial review of compensation, due to be completed in January. Kuzminski said troops likely won’t have to worry about support for the pay raise and other quality of life improvements in Congress, given their bipartisan support.
“This is one of those rare areas where we do see quite a bit of bipartisan agreement across administrations,” she said. “Military families are not only a policy portfolio, they are also a constituency, and so it behooves both presidents and Congresses to care about them.”
But a different issue which may raise partisan hackles is whether to stand up a Space National Guard, a move which the Department of the Air Force and the Biden administration opposes but which Trump, National Guard leaders, and some lawmakers support.
National Guard leaders said in April that creating a Space guard would “work exactly it is right now” with Air National Guard units that perform space missions, but Kuzminski said it could raise issues such as whether to expand the number of general officers to lead each state’s Space Guard or to group them under each state’s Air National Guard adjutant general; and what more generals might do to the balance of grade pay across the services.
The Space Force is currently figuring out how to implement a separate law, the Space Force Personnel Management Act, which creates options for Guardians to serve in part-time or full-time capacity. The concept would be a first for the military, and it is designed to make it easier for Guardians to pursue professional and personal goals.
Services are bound to work within the laws Congress passes, Kuzminski explained, and Congress has not yet mandated the Space Force figure out how a Space National Guard would work alongside or in lieu of a part-time/full-time force.
“The services’ core functionality is contingency planning, but when it comes to actually coming up with an implementation plan, you can’t have a plan B in case it goes a different direction,” she said. “You have to wait until that changes and then come up with your implementation plan.”