Transgender Navy SEAL: Biden order ‘going to give a lot of other individuals that chance to finally be themselves’

When Navy SEAL Ashley Nefzger heard rumblings that President Joe Biden could sign an executive order to repeal a Trump-era ban on most transgender Americans joining the military, she was cautiously hopeful. “I didn’t necessarily want to get my hopes up,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “Full Circle” Friday. “I was hopeful for it, but I also wanted to keep my expectations at bay on what exactly it was going to mean.” Nefzger has both lived through and written transgender military history since the Supreme Court allowed Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military to go into effect in January 2019. The year the ban took effect, Nefzger — who had already been serving in the military since 2002 — officially transitioned and became the first active-duty Navy SEAL in history to identify as transgender. Last week, Biden signed an executive order to repeal the ban. “That’s a weight lifted not only off of my shoulders, but off of so many transgender individuals that are serving right now, but also all of those who are not open and who are still unsure if they want to come out or unsure of themselves,” she said. “That’s allowing everybody to continue to be themselves without having to worry of any adverse effects from their command or being pushed out. And it allows them to serve with freedom in order to do their job.”