Transgender sailors and Marines who want to voluntarily separate before the military starts kicking them out have until March 28 to come forward, according to a Navy^[1] policy announced Thursday evening.

The policy, which was released to the fleet as a NAVADMIN^[2] after being filed in court by administration officials defending the ban against a lawsuit, is in line with the Defense Department-wide policy released last month that said service members who choose to separate would be eligible for separation pay^[3] that is twice as much as they would receive if they later get kicked out.

"An individual's sex is immutable, unchanging during a person's life," the Navy policy says. "After 28 March 2025, the [Department of the Navy] will initiate involuntary administrative separation for these personnel and others who are disqualified for military service."

Read Next: Marine Corps Doing Away with Civilian Family Readiness Officers, Limiting Jobs for Military Spouses^[4]

Since the Pentagon unveiled its policy, each of the military departments has been releasing its own memo to fill in details of how it will carry out the ban and the offer of voluntary separation, though they have all been largely similar to one another, including using the exact same language in some cases.

The Army^[5] policy, which was released in court late last week, gives transgender soldiers until March 26 to decide to voluntarily separate. The deadline to choose voluntary separation in the Air Force^[6] policy, filed in a court earlier this month, is also March 26.

Even as the services are rolling out their policies, a federal court appears poised to block the transgender service ban from taking effect.

At least two lawsuits have been filed against it, and a federal judge in Washington, D.C., hearing arguments in one of the lawsuits has appeared deeply skeptical of the Trump administration's defenses^[7]. That judge said at a hearing Wednesday that she expects to issue a ruling by next week^[8] on whether to block the ban from taking effect while the lawsuit works its way through the legal system.

The Pentagon is moving to ban transgender people from serving in the military to fulfill an executive order President Donald Trump signed in January that declared that being transgender is "not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."

Officials in the Pentagon have not offered any details or examples to substantiate that claim.

The policy the Pentagon put out to implement Trump's order says troops with a history of gender dysphoria, who "exhibit symptoms" of gender dysphoria, or who have transitioned to their gender identity are disqualified from service.

Gender dysphoria is the medical term for the distress caused by someone's gender identity not matching their sex assigned at birth.

The policy also outlines some exemptions, but advocates say the criteria for a waiver are impossible^[9] for any transgender service member to meet.

In order to qualify for a waiver, a transgender service member would have to be stable in their birth sex for 36 months, never have transitioned to their gender identity, and be willing to serve in their birth sex. The military service must also prove there is a "compelling government interest in retaining the service member," which subsequent guidance clarified to mean the service member has some sort of special skill or training.

However, the offer for sailors and Marines who self-identify themselves for discharge, though driven by Pentagon policy, is generous and unique for the Department of the Navy, which includes the Marine Corps.

Under the policy released Thursday, those who request voluntary separation by March 28 will receive double the normal involuntary separation pay.

Normally, involuntary separation pay^[10] is 10% of a service member's annual base pay multiplied by their years of service.

Some of the publicly serving transgender service members -- both officer and enlisted -- have served for more than a decade, so these payments can easily be more than $100,000 even before being doubled.

They will also have any remaining service obligation waived and will not have to repay any bonuses tied to their service obligation they received before Feb. 26.

Some of those bonuses can easily reach into the^[11] hundreds of thousands of dollars^[12].

The policy also stipulates that the discharge characterization will be honorable "except where the member's record otherwise warrants a different characterization," and those with more than 18 years of service but less than 20 years may be eligible for early retirement.

Those with less than six years or more than 20 years of service will not be eligible for the voluntary separation pay, the Navy policy says.

Navy Cmdr. Emily Shilling, a decorated jet pilot with 60 combat missions, is one of the longest serving publicly out transgender service members^[13]. She has served 19 years and eight months in uniform.

Within the Navy's new policy is a quiet admission that officials do not know just how many sailors or Marines the ban will be affecting, and the policy formally forbids Navy personnel from taking steps to "identify service members … [through] the use of medical records, periodic health assessments, ad hoc physical assessments, or any other diagnostic mechanism, unless otherwise directed" by someone at the Pentagon's office of personnel and readiness.

The Department of Defense does not track the number of transgender troops. In January, officials in the Pentagon said that they were aware of 4,240 service members across all services who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, but it is possible that others have not secured a formal diagnosis through the military or are turning to civilian doctors for care or medication, thus keeping their status hidden from commanders.

The Navy's policy, like the Army's, is less clear on what happens to anyone who does not volunteer to self-identify and separate before the deadline.

The memo says that they will be subject to involuntary separation, as well losing the ability to collect the pay and keep their bonuses, but it also notes that the "procedures for

involuntary separation will be promulgated via future guidance."

After service members request voluntary separation, they will be put into an administrative absence status until they are separated, according to the policy.

Related: 'Complete Purge': On-Paper Exemptions to Transgender Troop Ban Are Worthless, Advocates Say^[14]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a sweeping, military-wide review of physical fitness and grooming standards with the apparent aim of making the military a stricter and less accommodating environment for troops.

In a memo released late Wednesday, Hegseth ordered Darin Selnick, the man who is performing the duties of under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, to review "existing standards set by the Military Departments pertaining to physical fitness, body composition, and grooming, which includes but is not limited to beards."

While the memo itself doesn't offer insight into what Hegseth and the Pentagon would do following this review, the rhetoric from Hegseth, as well as the results of similar reviews within the military branches, suggests that many of the recent policies put in place to make serving easier for women and minorities may soon go away.

Read Next: VA to Step Up Rollout of New Electronic Health Records System in 2026^[1]

Within the memo itself, Hegseth argued that the military is "made stronger and more disciplined with high, uncompromising, and clear standards" and largely stuck to more elevated rhetoric about the need to maintain "the world's most lethal and effective fighting force."

Online, however, he was more direct.

"Our troops will be fit -- not fat," Hegseth wrote in a post on social media^[2] late Wednesday.

"Our troops will look sharp -- not sloppy," he continued, adding that the Defense Department "will make standards high and great again -- across the entire force."

Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, in a rare statement, went after weight standards while also personally attacking the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs^[3], Gen. Mark Milley.

"Unfortunately, the U.S. military's high standards on body composition and other metrics eroded in recent years, particularly during the tenure of former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, who set a bad example from the top through his own personal corpulence," Ullyot said in a statement provided to Military.com on Thursday.

A Personal Fight for Hegseth

However, neither Hegseth nor Ullyot offered any evidence to back their claim that standards -- especially weight standards -- have been decreased or eased in recent years.

In fact, in some cases, the services have been tightening the rules around how body composition -- whether someone is overweight or not -- is measured.

In June 2023, the Army^[4] moved to assessing body fat using a tape measurement^[5] around the waist only. It was part of an effort to move away from more outdated and inaccurate methods of measuring body fat and was seen as being less forgiving than the previous method of measuring both waist and neck.

In other cases, the services have tried to make those measurements more accurate.

In 2023, after completing a medical study^[6], the Marine Corps^[7] started using far more precise methods^[8] of measuring body fat -- dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, known as DEXA, or bioelectrical impedance analysis, known as BIA -- before officially declaring a Marine overweight and assigning them to the remedial body composition program.

The Navy^[9] has had the same body composition standards since 2015.

The exemptions to those tests^[10] are also aimed at troops who are high performers on fitness exams and struggle to meet the body standards because of their muscle mass.

The services have loosened the body composition^[11] rules for recruits as a way to get more people^[12] to enlist and as an acknowledgment of the fact that America as a whole is struggling with obesity. However, those recruits are still expected to conform to the same standard as everyone else in their service in order to graduate and serve.

Meanwhile, in his last book, Hegseth also took aim at the Pentagon's efforts to allow troops to sport different hair styles and offer exemptions for some troops to grow beards.

Citing a report that Defense Secretary Mark Esper commissioned during the first Trump term^[13], Hegseth argued that these changes were a loosening of standards.

"When I was in the Army, we kicked out good soldiers for having naked women tattooed on their arms, and today we are relaxing the standards on shaving, dreadlocks, man buns, and straight-up obesity," Hegseth wrote.

"Piece by piece, the standards had to go ... because of equity," he added.

While the services have all allowed their troops to sport a growing variety of hairstyles over the years, many of those changes have been not only popular but hard fought and driven by female service members^[14] advocating to their respective services.

They have also been in response to women suffering from conditions like alopecia, a type of hair loss^[15] that comes from constantly wearing their hair in a tight bun.

Some of the changes were specifically aimed at Black service members, but those exemptions or changes were focused on easing their life within the military or addressing medical concerns.

When the services began to allow styles like twists and cornrows, it was because female service members pushed them to do it, arguing that the styles were easier to manage in adverse circumstances^[16] and cheaper to maintain^[17].

Similarly, the conversation around loosening beard restrictions and issuing permanent exemptions is one that is rooted in medical issues that disproportionately affect Black men.

The frequent ingrown hairs and skin irritations caused by regular shaving known as pseudofolliculitis barbae, or PFB, occur in about 45% of Black service members, according to a 2021 study^[18].

In 2022, Black sailors told Navy Times^[19] they found the service's efforts to push them to shave was causing medical problems -- and its haphazard approach to dealing with the issue discriminatory.

While waivers were available, since they were just that -- exemptions and not policy, Black sailors have repeatedly said in various venues that they felt their only choice was to pass up job opportunities or face scarring and discomfort.

"It certainly felt discriminatory to the folks I talked to," John Cordle, a former Navy captain, said in a 2021 article^[20]. Cordle added that, while he was in the Navy, he was "woefully misinformed" on the issue and its effect on his Black sailors while in command.

And the issue isn't confined to the Navy.

A 2021 study in the Military Medicine journal^[21] found that some airmen with shaving waivers progressed slower in their Air Force^[22] careers and weren't promoted as fast as their peers. The findings showed a bias "against the presence of facial hair which will likely always affect the promotions of Blacks/African Americans disproportionately."

Hegseth's argument to turn back the clock on the limited exemptions to the military's insistence on shaving can have ramifications on who ends up choosing to serve.

Cordle's article notes that one former Black naval officer told him that his "father's face was a scarred mess" from shaving over the course of his Navy career and "lots of talent is lost to this policy in my view."

What a Renewed Push on Standards Could Look Like

The Air Force began a renewed focus on standards just prior to Hegseth's arrival, and it could offer an example of what all the services might be seeing soon.

In early January, ahead of Trump beginning his second term, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin released a video and memo to the entire service in which he called on commanders to review and enforce existing standards, ranging from following safety regulations and calling formations during which troops' uniforms^[23] and appearance would be inspected.

At the beginning of this month, the Air Force surgeon general tasked every airman with resetting their shaving profile -- a move that means they would need to re-justify the medical need for a shaving exception to a doctor.

In 2020, the Air Force surgeon general made it so that any shaving waivers for PFB would last for five years, but the new changes forces all airmen to undergo more scrutiny to separate shaving irritation from a PFB diagnosis.

While previously 60 nail colors were allowed, the service recently ordered that nail polish must be only "clear or French or American manicure."

Additionally, the service reaffirmed that hair must "not touch the ears," and it made a renewed push for a "gig line" when in dress uniform -- or purposely lining up the front button edge of the shirt, belt buckle and fly of the pants.

Notably, the Air Force's recent reinforcement of standards comes across as being at odds with the swath of more progressive dress, grooming and tattoo policies.

Related: Air Force to Put Renewed Emphasis on Safety and Uniform Standards^[24]