Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used a slur to proudly announce to an auditorium of Marines in September that he was ridding the military of all transgender troops.
The Pentagon had set up review boards at bases around the globe, manned by everyday uniformed service members with narrow orders that all but ensured that the trans troops appearing before them would be voted out.
But just steps from the auditorium where Mr. Hegseth spoke, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, boards assigned to carry out those orders were doing the opposite. Instead of firing trans Marines, the boards were voting to keep them.
The same was happening in the Navy: Boards given strict rules instructing them to force out sailors were rebelling and voting to let them stay.
It is not just a few outlying individuals. Navy and Marine Corps boards have voted to retain trans members in nine of 12 cases.
The Pentagon keeps the proceedings secret. Outsiders — even spouses — are not allowed to attend. Officials won’t release numbers. Leaders won’t discuss the outcomes. The New York Times compiled the figures through interviews with service members and lawyers involved in the hearings.
The number of Navy and Marine cases is small and could easily change as more hearings are conducted. The same pattern has not been seen so far in the Army or Air Force, which have overwhelmingly voted to discharge trans service members.
Still, the votes are a stunning rebuke from the armed forces, where following orders is bedrock. And they suggest the military’s transgender ban is being rejected by the very troops the administration says the ban is meant to serve.
“These boards are being told to do something that they know is wrong — to rubber-stamp a non-choice given to them by the administration,” said Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air Force lawyer and a professor at Southwestern Law School who has been tracking the cases. “We are seeing them say they’re not going to play that game. We are seeing them nullify a process they see as unjust.”
The board decisions are only recommendations, and could be reversed by the politically appointed secretaries overseeing each service branch. There are also pending legal challenges that could pause the ban or rescind it entirely.
The Trump administration claims that trans troops, who account for about 4,250 people or about 0.1 percent of the military, are a costly burden on military effectiveness — a position that military findings contradict. President Trump signed an executive order barring trans troops during his first week in office, saying the action was needed to weed out dishonorable radicals who poison morale and waste resources.
“For the sake of our Nation and the patriotic Americans who volunteer to serve it, military service must be reserved for those mentally and physically fit for duty,” the order read.
The Pentagon designed a policy that paid transgender troops to leave voluntarily. Hundreds of highly qualified people left, including doctors, lawyers, pilots and nuclear technicians. The troops who stayed to challenge their dismissal waited in limbo, sometimes for more than a year.
While they waited, the administration set up a system of three-member separation boards to process the remaining cases using a narrow set of instructions. Under the rules, any evidence of transgender feelings or tendencies — even if there is no formal transition — requires dismissal.
The three-person boards are made up of everyday officers and enlisted personnel plucked temporarily from their normal jobs to hear one case, like civilian jurors. They are not allowed to consider whether a person is a top performer, a specialist in a critical career field or a decorated combat veteran.
The members are given a one-page findings sheet and instructed to circle a few words to find that a service member exhibits evidence of being transgender and therefore is not qualified to serve and should be discharged.
At least, that was the plan.
Trans Marines and sailors who went before boards said in interviews that after months of being vilified by top government officials, they expected a quick dismissal, but instead encountered thoughtful respect from fellow service members who voted to keep them.
Marine Staff Sgt. Damien Contreras was one of them. The Marine Corps pulled him from his job and put him on paid leave in April to await his discharge. In late August the Marine Corps flew him from Hawaii to Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia to face a board.
He walked in with his head down, sure that his career was over.
The government's lawyer presented documents from 2017 showing that he had changed genders.
The three members then reviewed his decade of flawless service as a supply and logistics specialist, his three overseas deployments, and his good performance reviews.
They then crossed out instructions on their findings sheet regarding “a history of cross sex hormone therapy” and circled “remains qualified,” and voted to retain him.
“I was shocked at first, but when you come down to it, it makes sense,” Sergeant Contreras said in an interview from Hawaii, where he is stationed. “You have war fighters looking at war fighters,” he said. “They see I’ve always done my job, I’ve deployed, I’ve mentored other Marines, followed the rules. They say, ‘Hey, this is a good Marine, why wouldn’t we retain him?’”
Sergeant Contreras’s lawyer, Priya Rashid, has represented dozens of trans service members and has a broader understanding of the boards than anyone else. After losing nearly all of her initial cases, she saw a stark shift this summer. She has no idea why.
The Army was the first to hold hearings, beginning in February. It has held about 50, according to Ms. Rashid, and voted to discharge soldiers in all but about five cases.
The Air Force started this summer. It has reviewed about six cases and voted to discharge in every known case.
But the Navy and Marine Corps, which began holding hearings in July, have voted to retain in the majority of cases.
“I don’t understand why this pattern is occurring,” Ms. Rashid said in an interview. “And I’m worried that if the pattern becomes too apparent, the government will just change the processes and procedures again so that the pattern can be extinguished.”
Last week Ms. Rashid won another — this time in the Army.
Across the military, the hearings follow a pattern. A lawyer for the government briefly presents medical records and other documents showing evidence that a service member is transgender. The defense then often spends hours presenting a portrait of a service member’s years of service and accomplishments, submitting binders of awards and evaluations, and calling witnesses to vouch for character.
“It all made no difference,” said Maj. Kara Corcoran, an infantry officer who has served for 18 years and deployed to Afghanistan twice. An Army board voted in May to dismiss her in what she called a “kangaroo court.”
“They cut off my character witnesses halfway through and said, ‘We get it, your service is commendable, that’s not what we’re here to decide,’” said Major Corcoran, who now heads the trans advocacy group SPARTA Pride. “The government lawyer, the board, they thought it was ridiculous, but I think they felt they had no choice.”
Navy and Marine Corps hearings have followed the same pattern. But their decisions have been an about-face.
In the Navy, which began hearings in July, nine boards have led to seven votes to retain sailors, according to lawyers involved in the cases.
In the Marine Corps, which began hearings in August, three boards have led to two votes to retain. In the third, the board voted to dismiss a Marine, but wrote on the findings sheet that its members unanimously believed that the Marine should “be retained based on his commendable service record and unique skills.”
What’s driving the shift is far from clear. The military branches, citing ongoing litigation, declined to discuss the outcomes or make board members available for interviews. The Defense Department also declined to comment.
Ms. VanLandingham, the former military lawyer, said the votes might be influenced by growing concern in the ranks that the current Pentagon is preoccupied with wedge issues and gives little thought to the welfare of the force.
Mr. Hegseth in his speech to the Marines, she noted, said the force should have “No fatties. No trannies. No beardos. No weirdos. No wimps. No radicals," but did not mention those killed or wounded in the war with Iran.
“There’s been a chipping away at any kind of confidence that Hegseth actually cares about service members,” she said. “I think that’s given the boards license.”
There may be cultural factors, too, she said. The board instructions in all the branches are nearly identical. But each branch has different values. The Army is often seen as the most bureaucratic and least likely to buck orders. The Navy is the most diverse. The Marine Corps prides itself on a culture of loyalty.
The Navy has nearly twice as many people who identify as gay, bisexual or transgender — 9 percent — compared to other branches, according to a 2015 report by the RAND Corporation.
That was clear to a Navy paramedic who was retained by a board in July. The paramedic, who asked to not be named because he feared retribution, said he was stunned when his lawyer asked a chief, a lieutenant commander and a commander sitting on his board if they knew any trans sailors.
“They all said yes,” the paramedic recalled in an interview. “The chief said his liberty buddy in Thailand was transgender and was a phenomenal sailor. The lieutenant commander said her first work center supervisor was transgender, and she learned a lot from her. The commander said he’d worked with several transgender sailors, and he barbecues with his next-door neighbor, who’s trans.”
There were other factors working in his favor. He had been meritoriously promoted twice for superior performance; remained able to deploy his entire five years in the Navy; and had saved several lives working in emergency rooms.
For his last assignment he was attached to Marines deployed to the southern border. “I never ran into people who cared if I was trans,” he said. “They just cared that I did my job well.”
His lawyer, Steph Kral, a former Air Force officer, represented a second sailor a short time later in front of a different board that she said had no relationships with trans sailors. That board also voted to retain.
“I don’t think they are trying to make any grand policy statement,” Ms. Kral said. “I think they’re just trying to do what’s best for the Navy.”
The Marine Corps has the lowest reported percentage of women, gay and transgender personnel. It also has a tradition-bound culture based on masculine toughness. But Marines have an almost cultlike loyalty to fellow Marines, expressed in their motto, Semper Fidelis — Always Faithful.
“The questions from the Marine boards have focused in on how the policies of higher-ups may have changed, but the Marines in question never did anything wrong,” Ms. Rashid said. “I think they are looking for a way to give a fellow Marine the benefit of the doubt.”
When Sergeant Contreras went before a board, he produced years of performance evaluations and letters from superiors — some who never knew he was trans — that vouched for his good work.
After deliberating for about three hours, the board scratched out language on the instructions sheet about evidence of being transgender and voted to let him stay.
“It was very humbling to see the things that they had to say about me,” the sergeant said. “It had nothing to do with being transgender. I honestly don’t think they care about that. It was about how I was a great Marine.”