Judge Issues, With a Pause, Injunction Against Ban on Transgender People in the Military

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Federal District Court Judge Ana Reyes issued a scathing preliminary injunction against the Department of Defense impending ban on transgender people serving in the military, although she paused the injunction until Friday to allow the DOD a chance to apply for an emergency stay.

Reyes’ ruling said the DOD ban is “soaked in animus and dripping with pretext.” She also wrote, “Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact. Thus, even if the court analyzed the military ban under rational basis review, it would fail.”

The ruling most notably includes, “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.”

Donald Trump issued a more limited transgender service ban during his first term in the White House, prohibiting transgender people from joining the military but not kicking out any who were already in service. That ban went to the Supreme Court in 2019, where it was approved. President Biden removed that ban soon after he took office in 2021.

This ban goes further, making it essentially impossible for transgender service members to continue in the military.

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