Donald Trump is planning to kick all trans personnel out of the US Army even as World War III fears rise, sources claim.

The President-elect may sign an executive order on his first day in the White House on January 20.

An estimated 15,000 trans people are serving in the US Army. The order would prevent trans people from enlisting and eject all currently serving trans soldiers from their posts.Regardless of how many years they have served, trans troops would be given a special medical discharge that declares them unfit, insiders told The Times.

One source told the newspaper: ‘These people will be forced out at a time when the military can’t recruit enough people.

‘Only the Marine Corps is hitting its numbers for recruitment and some people who will be affected are in very senior positions.’

For LGBTQ+ Americans, there might be a sense of déjà vu here. Trump banned trans troops during his first term in the Oval Office in 2019 only for Joe Biden to reverse the policy when he was elected president.

Trans people were prohibited from serving as early as at least 1960 before being allowed briefly to throw on US Army uniforms between 2016 and 2019 under certain conditions.

But Trump put an end to this in a policy that campaigners compared to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ that once blocked queer people from enlisting.

Trump’s previous ban prevented people who had undergone gender-affirming surgery, intended to align patients’ appearance with their gender identity, or had a history of gender dysphoria from enlisting.

The only way a trans person could enlist in the military would be to go back into the closet. They would be unable to wear the uniforms, use the bathroom or sleep in the barracks that align with their gender.

He tried to justify the need for the policy in 2017, citing ‘tremendous medical costs and disruption’.

Americans aren’t exactly lining up to join the army. Just 1% of the country serves, though military services recruited 225,000 people in the last fiscal year.

But experts say officials have to spend a lot of money to get requirement figures up these days, with a lack of awareness, unqualified youth and the labour market being blamed for drooping numbers.

And this – and the army possibly losing 15,000 personnel – comes amid concerns World War 3 could break out as the Russia-Ukraine war escalates.

Biden’s green light to Ukraine to sue American long-range missiles saw allies of Trump, who claimed on the campaign trail he would end Vladimir Putin’s conflict, accuse the Democrat of ‘triggering World War III’.