Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Order Barring Transgender-Identifying People From Military Service

The judge said she will stay the preliminary injunction until March 21 to allow the administration time to appeal.

President Donald Trump departs the U.S. Capitol following a Friends of Ireland luncheon in Washington on March 12, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to exclude individuals with a gender identity inconsistent with their sex from military service.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes granted a preliminary injunction in favor of a group of transgender-identifying active-duty service members who challenged Trump’s order, saying that the order likely violates their constitutional rights and could cause them irreparable harm.

“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 stated in a 79-page ruling.

The judge said she would stay the preliminary injunction until March 21 to allow the administration time to appeal.

Reyes stated that the plaintiffs’ service records showed that “transgender persons can have the warrior ethos, physical and mental health, selflessness, honor, integrity, and discipline to ensure military excellence,” a point she said the administration has also acknowledged.

“Plaintiffs, they acknowledge, have ‘made America safer.’ So why discharge them and other decorated soldiers? Crickets from Defendants on this key question,” the judge said.

Jennifer Levi, an attorney with GLAD Law representing the plaintiffs, praised the court’s ruling as decisive, saying that it speaks volumes about the administration’s military reforms, which have impacted transgender-identifying personnel in particular.

“The Court’s unambiguous factual findings lay bare how this ban specifically targets and undermines our courageous service members who have committed themselves to defending our nation,” Levi said in a statement. “Given the Court’s clear-eyed assessment, we are confident this ruling will stand strong on appeal.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

The plaintiffs—comprising 20 active-duty service members and transgender-identifying persons seeking to enlist—filed their lawsuit on Jan. 28, alleging that the administration’s move to exclude transgender persons from military service is unconstitutional, and that Trump’s executive order “violates the Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment.”

“Rather than being based on any legitimate governmental purpose, the ban reflects animosity toward transgender people because of their transgender status,” the plaintiffs wrote in the court filing.

Attorneys general from 20 states also filed an amicus brief on Feb. 14 in support of the legal challenge to block Trump’s order. They argued that the ban is unconstitutional and “harms national security.”

Trump’s order, issued on Jan. 27, states that individuals “expressing a false gender identity” do not meet the standards for military service, and that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.”

According to the order, the pursuit of those standards cannot be “diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.”

It also cited “medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria” and Department of Defense (DOD) policy to ensure that service members are “[f]ree of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.”

The order directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth within 60 days to end what it called “invented and identification-based pronoun usage” that inaccurately reflects an individual’s sex.

The order also requires separation of male and female service members in sleeping, changing, and bathing facilities.

Following that order, Hegseth issued a policy on Feb. 26 stating that service members and military applicants with gender dysphoria are incompatible for military service.

The memo says that the Pentagon must create a procedure and implement steps to identify troops who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria by no later than March 26. By June 25, the Pentagon must begin “separation actions” for those individuals, according to the memo.

There are around 1.3 million active-duty personnel in the military, according to Department of Defense data. Although transgender advocates say there are as many as 15,000 service members who identify as transgender, officials say the number is in the low thousands.

Katabella Roberts and Reuters contributed to this report.