By Sebastien Malo

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NEW YORK, July 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he would ban transgender people from the U.S. military.

"Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail," Trump wrote.

As many as 10,700 transgender people are estimated to be serving in the U.S. military out of 1.4 million overall, according to a 2016 study by the RAND Corp., a California-based defense think tank. Another 134,000 people are transgender veterans, experts estimate.

The U.S. Department of Defense announced last year it was ending a ban on transgender troops serving openly, and it was expected this year to start allowing transgender recruits to join the armed forces.

Worldwide, it is unclear precisely how many national militaries actively bar transgender people, said Aaron Belkin, executive director of the Palm Center, an LGBT-rights think tank in California.

"Most countries just don't have any policy," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

But at least 18 nations allow transgender personnel to serve openly. Below is a list, according to a 2014 report by the Hague Center for Security Studies in the Netherlands:

- Australia

- Austria

- Belgium

- Bolivia

- Canada

- Czech Republic

- Denmark

- Estonia

- Finland

- France

- Germany

- Israel

- Netherlands

- New Zealand

- Norway

- Spain

- Sweden

- United Kingdom (Sources: The Hague Center for Strategic Studies; RAND Corporation)

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)