Washington, Aug 26: US President Dold Trump has signed a memo instructing the Defence Department to stop accepting transgender people into the armed forces, following through on his intentions announced a month earlier to ban such individuals from serving. The presidential memorandum signed on Friday officially requests the Pentagon to develop an implementation plan for the ban by February 21, 2018, to be put in place on March 23, 2018, reports The Hill magazine. The memo bars transgender people from enlisting, but instructs Secretary of Defence James Mattis and the Homeland Security “to determine how to address transgender individuals currently serving based on military effectiveness and lethality, unitary cohesion, budgetary constraints, applicable law, and all factors that may be relevant”, according to a White House official. It orders the Pentagon to stop paying for gender reassignment surgeries, except in cases that are already in progress to “protect the health of an individual”.