Trump’s Transgender Military Ban is “Soaked in Animus”
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing its transgender military ban, finding the policy may be discriminatory.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, of the District of Columbia, issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from enlisting in the military, which also includes expelling transgender service members from the Armed Forces.
The federal judge found the Trump administration’s ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because it discriminates against trans service members on the basis of their transgender status and sex.
Reyes said Trump’s executive order was “soaked in animus.”
“Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact,” she wrote. “Indeed, the cruel irony is that 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.”
Reyes noted that there appears to be sufficient evidence supporting the claims of the plaintiffs — which include transgender active-duty service members who would be impacted by the restriction on serving — that the ban is not only discriminatory but motivated by animus.
“Plaintiffs contend that because the Military Ban is fueled by animus, it fails any level of scrutiny,” Reyes said. “Defendants respond that the Court cannot probe ‘government officials’ subjective intentions.’ True, the Court cannot read minds. But it can read.”
Reyes continued: “[Trump’s executive order] and the Hegseth Policy tag transgender persons as weak, dishonorable, undisciplined, boastful, selfish liars who are mentally and physically unfit to serve. Its accompanying Fact Sheet piles on, further calling transgender persons insane, not resilient, unhealthy, and unfit. Hardly subtle. Refusing to give up the ghost, however, Defendants refused to answer whether this language evinces animus. But the Court has no such problem. It finds that the Military Ban’s language evinces the ‘bare…desire to harm a politically unpopular group.'”
Reyes garnered headlines for her harsh questioning of lawyers defending the Trump administration’s position during a court hearing last week, and openly expressed skepticism over the arguments that Department of Justice lawyers put forth to justify the ban, questioning whether the policy was motivated by anti-transgender sentiment.
Reyes also poked holes in the government’s arguments for the ban, noting that, despite its appeals to the military’s “rigorous physical and mental fitness requirements,” trans individuals currently serving have already met those requirements.
Additionally, she noted, the Trump administration’s policy, as promulgated by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, doesn’t target all service members receiving hormone therapy or surgical interventions like mastectomies or genital reconstruction surgery, but only transgender people who receive such treatments in order to transition.
Reyes argued that concerns about “privacy” and sharing intimate spaces with transgender individuals are a red herring as well, pointing to intersex individuals who may present differently anatomically than their chromosomal sex would suggest.
Yet, she noted, the military does not segregate sleeping quarters, or shower or restroom facilities based on anatomical sex, because doing so would not purge all transgender service members from the Armed Forces.
Reyes also pushed back against assertions that the cost of providing gender-affirming care to transgender service members was prohibitively expensive, noting that the Department of Defense spends eight times more on Viagra than it does on gender-affirming medical care each year.
Reyes noted that there is a voluminous amount of evidence demonstrating that the current administration is hostile to transgender identity, pointing to Trump’s executive orders recognizing only two sexes, blocking schools from affirming gender identity, barring gender-neutral gender markers on identity documents, and blocking gender-affirming care for minors. She noted that mentions of transgender identity had been scrubbed from federal websites.
“This Court does not opine on the constitutionality of these actions,” Reyes wrote. “That said, the flurry of government actions directed at transgender persons — denying them everything from necessary medical care to access to homeless shelters — must give pause to any court asked to consider whether one such order under review furthers a legitimate government interest free of animus.”
If allowed to stand, the nationwide preliminary injunction issued by Reyes would prevent the Department of Defense from forcibly discharging transgender individuals, denying them medical care, or prohibiting them from deploying abroad.
Reyes delayed the effect of her injunction until March 21 to give the Trump administration time to appeal her decision.
“The President and Defendants could have crafted a policy that balances the Nation’s need for a prepared military and Americans’ right to equal protection,” she concluded. “They still can. The Military Ban, however, is not that policy. The Court therefore must act to uphold the equal protection rights that the military defends every day.”
GLAD Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which are representing the military plaintiffs, celebrated Reyes’ “decisive” ruling, expressing hope that it would withstand an appeal by the Trump administration.
Calling the ban “irrational,” NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter said in a statement that the ban would have had disastrous impacts on transgender military personnel.
“[The ban] would have ended careers of dedicated transgender service members and created personnel gaps, leaving others to fill critical roles,” Minter said. “The ban’s harmful impact and rushed implementation show that it was motivated by prejudice.”
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