A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from banning trans people from serving in the military.
U.S. District Court Judge Ana C. Reyes issued a ban in his efforts to forcefully denounce the president, allowing cross-troop service to continue serving in the military, according to rules set by the Biden administration until their lawsuit against the Trump administration’s ban was ruled.
Judge Reyes wrote: “The injunction at the bottom is invoked derogatory language, aiming to violate the Fifth Amendment.”
The government argued that the courts must comply with military judgments, but in a 79-page opinion, the judge said the government had paid an injunction based on recent evidence, “The law does not require courts to judge the wrong path based on conjecture.”
According to the Ministry of Defense, about 4,200 current service personnel (about 0.2% of military power) are transgender people. They include pilots, senior officials, nuclear technicians and green berets, as well as equal soldiers, sailors, pilots and Marines. Despite the relatively small number, they have been a disproportionate focus of the Trump administration.
In January, President Trump signed a harsh executive order saying that the cross-troop tortures the military with a “radical gender ideology”, “adopting gender identity is inconsistent with individual gender conflict, inconsistent with soldier-to-soldier gender conflict, even in one’s life.”
In February, the Ministry of Defense issued new policies, including the same language, and said that all cross-troops, regardless of their merits, would be forced to withdraw from the military.
Several service members immediately sued, saying the policy constituted illegal discrimination and violated constitutional rights under the law.
The military is still finalizing plans for the ban to come into effect, but has not forced any cross-troop phase-outs, although it encourages them to “voluntarily separate” and even provides payments to encourage them to leave quickly. The Navy has set a March 28 deadline for transgender sailors to request voluntary separation.
The troops said they were forced to use pronouns and meet the beauty standards of their birth gender in six weeks since the signing of Mr. Trump’s executive order and were denied medical services and passed the deployment and took leave.
“Their lives and careers were completely destroyed,” said Shannon Minter, a legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, representing service members. “That’s why it’s so important to get them to relieve them immediately.”
Mr. Minter said Mr. Trump’s executive order was so illegally sick will, known in the legal community as Animus – towards a specific group of people that he thought it was unlikely to survive a federal court review.
During a controversial hearing on March 12, Judge Reyes, appointed by President Biden in 2023, spent a full day in the Justice Department attorney defending the policy, and she often expressed frustration at their responses
The judge lined up reports of trans service members, which said the government had cited when issuing the ban, noting that the data had been outdated for years and that the Department of Defense’s conclusions were “completely, seriously misleading” because they “cheered a portion of them, even misunderstood.”
The evidence presented was so thin that the Department of Defense may have cited the latest Beyoncé album, she said.
“How can you say that – a group of people lack humility?” The judge told the government’s lawyers, who claimed the ban was justified. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Jason Manion, a government lawyer, argued at the hearing that federal law gives the military special room to make decisions rather than the courts’ decisions about the merits of the Department of Defense evidence. “At the end of the day, we ask you to extend the military judgment,” Mannyon said.
The judge replied, “You have always believed that judgment is embedded in it.” She said, “As far as I know, the only judgment in this case is that the government believes that trans people lack integrity, humility, judgment and warrior spirit.
The judge repeatedly suggested that there was a clear lack of evidence that the negative effects of cross-troop suggest that government policies were driven by hostility.
Mr Manion believes that showing Animus influenced the policy is not enough to prove that it was found illegal. He cited a Supreme Court ruling to uphold President Trump’s 2017 executive order banning travelers from seven majority Muslim countries, and he said the order on cross-troop was based solely on Animus, and that’s all.
“There is only evidence of animus, and the hump is not overcome,” he said.
Cross-troop once won in court by similar orders. President Trump announced a ban on transgender on Twitter at the beginning of his first term, but the policy was quickly blocked by two federal judges.
The Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling allows the reconfiguration of the injunction to take effect, while the court considers the constitutionality of the policy. The case was revoked after President Joe Biden lifted Mr. Trump’s ban in 2021, which has disturbed people about whether trans service members will be a constitutional issue.
The latest efforts of the Trump administration are far from the military’s 77-year trend to welcome increasingly diverse Americans. During that time, it was usually the White House that promoted more inclusion, while the military was resisting. The character has now been flipped.
Military leaders have repeatedly opposed the trans ban.
The trans command is part of a comprehensive effort to provide the military with diversity efforts. The Trump administration believes the backfire efforts. The rollback included firing some senior military leaders, ending recognition of gay pride and black history months, and clearing content from the Department of Defense website’s diversity and inclusion efforts – and even removing photos of the B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb, probably because its name was Enola Gay, was searched for the text needed for the department in the search terms.
This week, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it would end gender affirmation for trans veterans.
“If veterans want to try to change their sexual behavior, they can do that,” said Doug Collins, secretary of veterans affairs.
Although the new ban temporarily saved Trans Service members from firing, many said it was difficult to continue their careers as if nothing had happened.
Sergeant top-notch Julia Becraft was assigned to an Army Armor Battalion in Texas and is scheduled to be promoted to platoon leader in July, but the promotion has been put on hold since the suspension was announced.
She was so upset by the president’s order that she decided to spend time focusing on her mental health and always attend treatment classes.
“Everyone in my unit is very supportive, but my world is turned upside down,” she said.
Sergeant Becraft served in the Army for 14 years, was deployed to Afghanistan three times and was awarded the Bronze Star. Now, she is facing forced to withdraw from service without retirement benefits.
Even if she was eventually allowed to stay, the president’s actions made her wonder if she could still be committed to serving her country.
“It’s not just because they follow me and want me out,” she said. “It’s the climax of everything else they’re doing: the effort to cancel the DEI and fire all these great leaders for no reason. I wish I could stay strong and fight, but, honestly, I’m just scared.”
