A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to reinstate all transgender service members in all U.S. military branches after a lawsuit challenged his sweeping command to effectively remove transgender troops.
In a loss for the Trump administration, Tuesday’s order, from District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C., temporarily blocks President Donald Trump’s ban as well as a Pentagon memo with additional guidance.
“The effect of the Court’s Order is to maintain the status quo of military policy regarding transgender service that existed immediately before” Trump issued his executive order, Reyes wrote.
She also ordered the Trump administration to maintain and continue the military statuses of the 20 plaintiffs, who include decorated U.S. military service members across all branches.
The president’s January directive claims the “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.”
The decision comes one week after a chaotic hearing in which the Department of Justice lawyers got tangled up by the judge’s questioning. She poked holes in the data included in the Department of Defense’s memo, asked simple questions about the scope of the ban which the government lawyers failed to answer, and scolded the attorneys for their lack of preparedness.
The Pentagon guidance from last month says “the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals who have 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.”