Judge pauses Trump ban on transgender troops
President's order likely unconstitutional discrimination, opinion says
By: Maureen Groppe
and Bart Jansen
USA Today
WASHINGTON - A federal judge earlier this week [03/18/2025] temporarily blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump;s restrictions on transgender people serving in the military while a lawsuit challenging the ban is litigated.
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U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who was appointed to the bench by former President Joe Biden, said in a fiery opinion that while the president "has the power - indeed the obligation - to ensure military readiness," leaders have at time used that as a cover "to deny marginalized persons the privilege of serving,"
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And Trump's executive order likely violated the U.S. constitution's prohibition on sex discrimination Reyes wrote Tuesday, [03/18/2025] adding the military is stronger and the nation is safer because if the million of minorities, women and other marginalized people willing to serve.
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"indeed the cruel irony is ha thousands of transgender service-members have sacrificed - some risking their lives - to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them': she wrote in an opinion she acknowledged will "lead to heated public debate and appeals."
..... Reyes kept her judicial order form going into effect for a few days to allow the administration time to file an emergency appeal.
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Trump's order list being challenged by a group of transgender service-members and recruits who argue the administration abruptly changed the military's policy without evidence of problems with transgender personnel and did so with "openly derogatory language."
..... To implement Trump's order, the Pentagon has barred transgender people from joining the military, stopped paying for some hormonal treatment and sex reassignment surgery and began removing transgender service-members from the ranks,
..... "It's possible to get a waiver to remain in the military, but only for a service-member who, according to Trump administration policy, "has never attempted to transition to any sex other that their sex" and who adheres to "Standard associated with their sex as defined by the administration.
..... The government has not said how many people it expects would be affected by Trump's policy. Instead, the Justice Department has pointed to a 2016 Rand Corporation estimate that between 1,300 and 6,620 of the 1.3 million active-duty service-members were transgender.
..... The plaintiffs challenging the policy include an Army major who received a Bronze Star for service in Afghanistan and an army' captain who'd been invited to teach at West Point.
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The Pentagon began accepting transgender troops in June 2016.
..... Trump banned transgender service during his first term. Judges in four lawsuits initially blocked his order until the supreme Court cleared the way for a revised policy in January 2017.
..... Biden overturned Trump's order during his first week in office. But trump reversed Biden's order and effectively imposed another ban on transgender service-members, prompting a lawsuit asking the court to block Trump's mandate.
..... Contributing: Reuters