A federal judge on Tuesday evening issued a preliminary injunction that stops the Trump administration from enforcing its ban on transgender people serving in the US military. Under the sternly-worded opinion issued by US District Judge Ana C. Reyes, transgenders can continue serving while the lawsuit challenging the ban proceeds. The injunction springs from Reyes’ conclusion that the transgender plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits, and face irreparable harm in the interim.
Reyes, a Biden nominee who was heralded as the first openly lesbian and first Latina district judge in DC, said the ban was based on un-evidenced claims that people diagnosed with gender dysphoria were unfit to serve, and that “the law does not demand that the Court rubber-stamp illogical judgments based on conjecture.” Flashing her woke-leftist credentials, Reyes’ included a gratuitous quote from the musical Hamilton in her 79-page opinion.
Reyes was clearly ruffled by the pointed language used by Trump and the Department of Defense in regard to transgenders. “The Military Ban is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact,” wrote Reyes.
In Trump’s Jan 26 executive order, he declared:
“Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service…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.”
Her injunction against the ban was no surprise, given her testy exchanges with DOJ attorneys at a hearing earlier this month. “You would agree with me that calling people liars, and lacking integrity, and not able to meet rigorous standards for discipline is insulting: yes or no, or you can’t say?” she asked. In her Monday opinion, Reyes wrote, “The ban at bottom invokes derogatory language to target a vulnerable group in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”
A federal judge blocks President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from military service.
The judge 👇 pic.twitter.com/7pgBB6yInW
— Alaska (@Alaska0420) March 19, 2025
In February, the Pentagon told Reyes that it was about to begin tracking down and discharging trans service members. “Service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria will be processed for separation from military service,” the DOD said in a court filing. The campaign was to be carried out in two phases. First, the Pentagon had 30 days to create a process for identifying and cataloguing every transgender service member. Discharges were to commence in the next 30 days after that. Discharges were to be “honorable” unless the individual’s record made a lesser classification appropriate.
“The Department only recognizes two sexes: male and female,” the memo added. “An individual’s sex is immutable, unchanging during a person’s life. All service members will only serve in accordance with their sex.” Out of some 1.3 million active duty service members, trans advocates say there upwards of 15,000 who think they’re transgender, but officials counter that the actual tally is in the low thousands.
While discharges under the new policy had not yet started, life for the military’s lingering transgenders had begun to transition dramatically:
In the six weeks since Mr. Trump’s executive order was signed, troops say, they have been forced to use the pronouns and conform to the grooming standards of their birth sex, and have been denied medical care, passed over for assignments sent home from deployments and put on administrative leave. – New York Times
The Times is seemingly using the term “medical care” expansively to encompass elective hormonal and surgical interventions to help people with gender dysphoria modify their bodies. Paralleling the military’s approach to the issue, the Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday announced it would stop providing so-called “gender affirming care” for veterans. “If veterans want to attempt to change their sex, they can do so on their own dime,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins.
The preliminary injunction against the transgender ban is just the latest of many court rulings thwarting the enactment of Trump policies:
That makes 27 of Trump’s decisions blocked by federal judges
2/3 of this Senate will never vote to remove them. Only 53% are GOP, including RINOs
Winning the presidency is not enough to fix fedgov because the Left is more powerful in the US
Solution: help red states secede! pic.twitter.com/3F9cyrGDaz
— state secession (@state_secession) March 19, 2025
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/19/2025 – 11:05
