A federal judge Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from enlisting or serving in the military.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes of Washington, D.C., ruled that the ban violates the equal protection clause because it discriminates based on transgender status and sex.
Reyes said the ban “is soaked in animus.”
“Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact,” she wrote.
She added, “Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed — some risking their lives — to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them.”
Reyes delayed the effect of her preliminary injunction until Friday to give the administration time to appeal it. She added in her order that the government “could have crafted a policy that balances the Nation’s need for a prepared military and Americans’ right to equal protection.”
“They still can,” she said. “The Military Ban, however, is not that policy. The Court therefore must act to uphold the equal protection rights that the military defends every day.”
The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is representing several trans service members and trans people who want to enlist in a lawsuit, said Reyes acted quickly “to shield our troops from the harmful effects of this irrational ban.”
“The ban’s harmful impact and rushed implementation show that it was motivated by prejudice,” Minter said in a statement. “Our plaintiffs include lifelong military personnel who served in combat in Afghanistan, come from multi-generation military families, and have received honors like the Bronze Star. This ban is unjustifiable and attacks brave servicemembers, recruits, and families who sacrifice so much for our country.”
Trump’s order goes much further than a similar policy he issued during his first term, which prohibited trans people from enlisting and allowed those already serving to continue doing so in a manner consistent with their gender identities and continue receiving transition-related medical care if they came out before the ban. Service members who came out after it were not allowed to receive such medical care and had to continue serving in a manner consistent with their assigned sexes at birth.
The new policy prohibits trans people from enlisting and requires the military to identify all trans service members who have “a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria,” which is the medical term for the severe emotional distress caused by the misalignment between one’s gender identity and birth sex, according to a memo the Defense Department filed in the lawsuit last week.
Those identified by the Pentagon will be disqualified from service and must be removed from their jobs. They will receive honorable separations unless their records reflect otherwise, according to the memo.
In January, two national LGBTQ legal organizations, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and the the National Center for Lesbian Rights, filed suit against Trump’s executive order on behalf of six active-duty trans service members and two trans people seeking to enlist. They argued that the ban discriminates against trans people and “reflects animosity toward transgender people because of their transgender status.”
The order, the lawsuit said, declared that being trans fundamentally “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
The order said, “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Reyes pushed Justice Department attorney Jason C. Lynch on that language during preliminary hearings last month, asking repeatedly whether he believed it showed animus against the trans community.
“Would it be fair to say that excluding a group of people from military service based on unsupported assertions that they are liars, immodest, lack integrity, are undisciplined and are dishonorable, would you agree with me that — particularly where there’s no support for any of those assertions — that that is animated by animus?” Reyes asked Lynch, who declined to answer.
Multiple Defense Department memos also say enlisted service members will be required to use pronouns and salutations, such as “sir” and “ma’am,” that align with their birth sexes. Reyes pressed Lynch about how pronoun usage affects military readiness.
“I don’t —” Lynch said, before the judge interrupted him.
“Because it doesn’t,” Reyes said. “Because any commonsense rational human being understands that it doesn’t.”
