FILE PHOTO: Paulo Batista, a transgender man training to enlist in the U.S. military despite the Trump administration's ban on transgender people, poses for a portrait in San Diego, California, U.S., October 1, 2020. Picture taken October 1, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Blake
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Paulo Batista is lifting weights and hitting the books, striving to fulfill his father's dying wish for him to join the U.S. military. But he says all he has heard from the armed forces is either silence or a door slamming shut.
Batista is transgender, effectively banned from military service under a policy announced by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017 and formally adopted in 2019, reversing a policy former President Barack Obama's administration had enacted, after extensive review, to allow transgender military service.
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