Pentagon lawyers will fight back against a judge’s order preventing the Trump administration from kicking transgender troops out of the military, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday.
Earlier this week, a Washington, DC, federal judge deemed President Trump’s executive order restoring the ban on transgender service in the military unconstitutional and described it as “soaked in animus.”
“We are appealing this decision, and we will win,” Hegseth wrote on X of the legal setback.
The Pentagon chief began developing a plan last month to carry out the president’s Jan. 27 executive order, which prohibits any service member who identifies as a gender other than their birth sex from serving or enlisting on grounds of mental unfitness
On Tuesday, US District Judge Ana Reyes ordered the Pentagon to stop discharging transgender service members from the military and gave a Friday deadline for the administration to appeal before her preliminary injunction goes into effect.
“Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact,” Reyes, a Biden-appointed judge, chided in a blistering opinion.
“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 Defense Department estimates that about 4,200 active duty service members are transgender, about 0.2% of the military.
The ban specifically applies to service members with “a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria,” according to a Pentagon memo revealed in court filings.
Prior to Reyes’ order, the Pentagon had set a deadline of March 26 to develop a method of identifying transgender service members and then planned to have them separated from the military by June 25.
Hegseth and Trump have publicly characterized the ban as an effort to ensure military readiness, but the judge had a different take, writing in her order that “leaders have used concern for military readiness to deny marginalized persons the privilege of serving.”
Six active-duty service members had filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the ban. GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have been arguing the case on behalf of the six service members.
“The Court’s opinion is long, but its premise is simple. In the self-evident truth that all people are created equal, all means all. Nothing more. And certainly nothing less,” Reyes summed up her 79-page ruling.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller raged against the ruling on Tuesday.
“District court judges have now decided they are in command of the Armed Forces…is there no end to this madness?” he chided on X.
The Obama administration had allowed transgender people to openly serve in the military, while Trump — as the 45th president — instituted a ban on trans people enlisting while allowing those already serving to do so in a manner consistent with their gender identities and continue to receive gender-related medical care.
Eventually, the US Supreme Court allowed Trump’s ban to take effect before it was scrapped by former President Biden.
