The military was originally scheduled to complete its adjustment to openly transgender troops by July 2017. That month, however, President Trump declared in a tweet that transgender people would be prohibited from serving in the military. The next day, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford said, "There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President's direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidance. In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect." Trump later published a memo on August 25, 2017 directing that an implementation plan be submitted to him by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security by February 2018. In November 2018, the Trump administration formally asked the Supreme Court to issue a ruling on the matter, even though lower courts were still hearing appeals. Though the Supreme Court initially refused this request, on January 22, 2019, it granted temporary permission to the Trump administration to proceed with its ban, and on March 12 the Department of Defense released a memorandum describing the terms of the ban to take effect on April 12, 2019. The memorandum offers some protection for existing military personnel who were already diagnosed with "gender dysphoria" or who were already serving in their self-designated gender before the memorandum was issued. However, new personnel must serve in their birth gender/sex and are disqualified from service if they have a recent history of gender dysphoria or if they have ever received hormones and surgery related to gender transition. Two bipartisan bills in Congress are pushing back against the ban.