Judge Blocks Trump’s Efforts to Ban Transgender Troops from Military Service

President Donald Trump‘s executive order banning transgender people from military service was blocked by a federal judge on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes issued a preliminary injunction allowing trans members to continue serving in the military, ruling that the new policy violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause. “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 wrote in a sharply-written opinion.

The judge delayed the effect of her order until Friday to give the Trump administration time to appeal.

The policy would have expelled transgender troops from the ranks, and followed a January executive order signed by Trump on his first day back in office. In the order, the president claimed that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” adding that being a transgender service member “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an

honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.”

The order also directed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to overhaul the Pentagon’s policy governing trans service members. A group of transgender members of the military challenged the order seeking to bar them from military service, stating that it violated their constitutional rights. Reyes highlighted that among the plaintiffs pushing back are service members who have served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait, and have earned more than 80 decorations including a Bronze Star, two Global War on Terrorism Service Medals, numerous Meritorious Service Medals, and more.

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Reyes called declarations that transgender people are not honorable, truthful, or disciplined “pure conjecture,” further asserting that Trump’s executive order and the Defense Department policy “provide nothing to support Defendants’ view that transgender military service is inconsistent with military readiness.”

“The Court knows that this opinion will lead to heated public debate and appeals. In a
healthy democracy, both are positive outcomes,” concluded Reyes. “We should all agree, however, that every person who has answered the call to serve deserves our gratitude and respect. For, as Elmer Davis observed, ‘[t]his nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.'”