Federal judge blocks Trump’s transgender military executive order

A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden has blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. 

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction barring the Pentagon from enforcing Trump’s order, which asserted ‘expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.’ The order, issued Jan. 27, instructed the Department of Defense (DOD) to update its medical standards for military service and pronoun policies, stating that ‘beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.’ 

Reyes said that the executive order likely poses constitutional rights violations. 

‘The court knows that this opinion will lead to heated public debate and appeals. In a healthy democracy, both are positive outcomes,’ Reyes wrote, delaying her order until Friday morning to allow time for the Trump administration to appeal. ‘We should all agree, however, that every person who has answered the call to serve deserves our gratitude and respect.’

Transgender individuals were considered unfit for U.S. military service until the DOD changed its policy during former President Barack Obama’s second term. 

In her 79-page ruling, Reyes in part cites Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical ‘Hamilton’ to justify blocking the ban on transgender troops. 

‘Women were ‘included in the sequel’ when passage of the Nineteenth Amendment granted them the right to vote in 1920,’ Reyes wrote in the footnotes, adding, ‘That right is one of the many that thousands of transgender persons serve to protect.’

Reyes said plaintiffs ‘face a violation of their constitutional rights, which constitutes irreparable harm.’ 

‘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,’ the judge wrote, adding that the defendants, on the other hand, ‘have not shown they will be burdened by continuing the status quo pending this litigation, and avoiding constitutional violations is always in the public interest.’ 

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller condemned Reyes’ ruling on X, writing, ‘District court judges have now decided they are in command of the Armed Forces…is there no end to this madness?’ 

Reyes was the second judge of the day to rule against the Trump administration. Trump called for impeaching a third judge who temporarily blocked deportation flights, drawing a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.

‘Unelected rogue judges are trying to steal years of time from a 4 year term. It’s the most egregious theft one can imagine: robbing the vote and voice of the American People,’ Miller wrote in another X post. 

In response to Trump’s executive order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy on Feb. 26 that presumptively disqualifies people with gender dysphoria from military service. The policy says, ‘a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.’

Plaintiffs’ attorneys contend Trump’s order violates transgender people’s rights to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.

Government lawyers argue that military officials have broad discretion to decide how to assign and deploy service members without judicial interference.

Reyes said she did not take lightly her decision to issue an injunction blocking Trump’s order, noting that ‘Judicial overreach is no less pernicious than executive overreach.’ However, she said, it was also the responsibility of each branch of government to provide checks and balances for the others, and the court ‘therefore must act to uphold the equal protection rights that the military defends every day.’

Thousands of transgender people serve in the military, but they represent less than 1% of the total number of active-duty service members, according to The Associated Press. 

In 2016, a DOD policy permitted transgender people to serve openly in the military. During Trump’s first term, he issued a directive to ban transgender service members. The Supreme Court allowed the ban to take effect. 

Biden, a Democrat who served as Obama’s vice president, scrapped it when he took office.

Six service members and two people wanting to enlist in the military sued the government in January over Trump’s executive order. About a dozen others, including nine people on active duty, have since joined the lawsuit. Their attorneys, from the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLAD Law, said transgender troops ‘seek nothing more than the opportunity to continue dedicating their lives to defending the Nation.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report.