This week, President Trump signed four more executive orders to reshape the US military, including banning transgender service members from enlisting and serving openly in the armed forces.

The order, titled Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness, reinstates the policy from the president's first term and repeal the policy by President Joe Biden that allowed trans people to enlist and receive insurance coverage for transition related medical care.

The Defense Department now has 60 days to update its military medical standards, but it's unclear just how quickly transgender service members could be ejected.

For a deeper look.

I'm joined by Jennifer Long, a transgender Army veteran from New Jersey who left the military in 2012 in order to transition.

Jennifer, thanks for joining me.

Let me just ask you first, what was your reaction to this new executive order?

You know, this is only the second go around with this.

You know, this I'm putting back in place a ban.

It's a little bit of horror.

And, you know, and a grave disappointment of the impact that this has on service members across, you know, the United States military.

It's not a it's not a good it's not a good story.

And it's not a good it's not going to go good ending.

And it has a deep ripple effect across our society.

What stood out to you specifically either about the language, what's included, what's not included?

The first go around, as you mentioned, there was a waiver program, although the data that I double checked shows it was was not really used.

What stood out to you?

Well, I knew, you know, in the original, you know, the order, you know, what he puts in the order.

And one of the most interesting pieces in the piece, it's most disturbing is ordering soldiers to go back to their previous, you know, gender, legality, birth, gender, living conditions.

And you know, that, you know of itself is problematic and even cruel to a certain extent to say, you know, if I'm, you know, male to female, to go back to live in a male barracks and shower and all and live in under those confines could be, you know, trauma traumatic on both sides.

It's not, you know, not a welcome sight.

And for female to male.

You know, putting them back into a, you know, a female barracks situation, you know, is is it's cruel and it's you know, it's something that shouldn't shouldn't be tolerated.

You served, as I understand, multiple tours overseas in the Middle East, but you retired because you wanted to transition and you were ready for that.

Otherwise, as far as I understand, you say you would have stayed in the military.

What do you think is going to happen now.

Because of this small correction?

I was actually asked to leave the military and, you know, it came out that I was living more or less a double life at the time, and I was reached the rank of sergeant major.

This was in 2012, and I was unceremoniously asked to leave the service and retire.

What do you then think, based off of your experience, is going to happen to service members?

Will they be pushed out?

Do you believe that they'll leave on their own accord?

Although they're wanting to serve the country?

Well, if you're an enlisted soldier, you're under contract.

You can't just up and leave.

Right.

So you have to be discharged.

And then what happens in this case is what's the condition of discharge?

Right.

Is it just, you know, reduction in force, release of force with an honorable discharge or general or less than, you know, general with less than honorable those different categories and those categories are very specific.

You know, have very specific employment implications to how the individual get, you know, all access, different VA benefits or veteran benefits.

You know, and you have to remember, they've done nothing wrong.

They've they volunteered to serve in the American military.

They've raised their right hand and took an oath and they've served with honor.

Now suddenly they're being their service is being discredited, dishonored.

And the article must be look like, you know, looked upon as a defect.

What's what's your message then, to service members who train service members or those who were potentially eyeing a future in the military?

Well, that, you know, if you're trans, there's no chance you're going to get into the military.

And now in the current administrative environment, the badges.

So you're not going to be able to enlist.

And if you're in the service, you're going to be looking for an exit light because it's going to make the service life.

And, you know, if they don't discharge you extremely uncomfortable, you know, you can't just simply go back to where you were.

And, you know, it's not it's not conducive in a lot of areas, you know, and we're talking about a lot of talented individuals.

You know, the American military there is estimated about 14,000 service members who are trans, you know, and identify as transgender across all branches total and a force that structure that's about 1.3 million.

So, you know, through 1.3 million, there's like 14,000 transgender individuals spread across all the branches.

It's not a big impact.

It's not a lot of forces that make it sound like the you know, the military's got hundreds of thousands of trans soldiers in that.

You're really told it's a very small, very small group.

I wonder if I can just get your take also on some of the other changes.

For example, a new secretary of defense who was sworn in this weekend, Pete Hegseth, and their ability to lead this massive department.

Well, you know, I served with Pete Hegseth during my touring Guantanamo Bay in 2004, 2005.

We were shipped opposite.

So we were I was assigned the position of Lieutenant and he was you know, we worked in the same the same tour of duty, just the different shifts.

You know, he was young Officer Tom Young lieutenant.

And so, you know, he was, you know, not a bad officer, but, you know, in retrospect to where he is today, I mean, he was a junior officer even in his military career.

So, you know, he never had a lot of experience leading large forces or, you know, anything on an international stage.

So when you bring that into secretary of defense, you know, he's light on, you know, overall global experience and, you know, military wide experience, which could be a problem.

But more importantly, the overarching piece is his, you know, convictions that he has of an open bias towards women in the military.

And trans folks that, you know, that I think is going to work against them.

It's you know, he's come out and he's tried to soften the tone when he was pressed, you know, really hard when he during the Senate hearing Commission.

But he feels strongly against women, open serve, open service, you know, in combat roles.

And, you know, and, you know, for transgender service members in general, he just wants them out.

He thinks it's going to affect readiness in some way.

And it's really readiness.

Is it affected by male or female or trans?

It's really has to do with the, you know, the equipment, the training.

The leadership has the biggest effect on unit readiness.

Jennifer Long, thanks so much for your time today.

You're very welcome.

Thanks for having me on today.