The Palm Center focused almost exclusively on military policies concerning transgender personnel from 2013 thru 2022. On June 30, 2016, the military lifted the transgender ban, but President Trump reinstated it on April 12, 2019. Then, upon taking office, President Biden immediately lifted Trump’s ban on January 25, 2021.

We are proud that at a 2016 White House ceremony, a senior Pentagon official credited the Palm Center as one of the organizations most responsible for helping the Defense Department lift the ban; that we helped defend inclusive policy from attempts to reinstate it; and that we worked with senior officials to reinstate inclusive policy in 2021. Here is a memo on the role that the Palm Center played in these events, and here is a study explaining why the ban unraveled so quickly in 2015 and 2016.