In a ruling Tuesday, a Biden-appointed federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order effectively banning transgender persons from serving in the U.S. military.
Washington, D.C. District Court Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction on the order, effectively halting the law until a former ruling is issued. Transgender military members sued the Trump administration in January over the order, alleging the policy violates the U.S. Constitution under equal protection afforded under the Fifth Amendment.
“Leaders have used concern for military readiness to deny marginalized persons,” Reyes said in her opinion. “First minorities, then women in combat, then gays filled in that blank. Today, however, our military is stronger and our Nation is safer for the millions of such blanks (and all other persons) who serve.”
Reyes was appointed under former President Joe Biden in 2023, serving as the first LGBT federal judge in D.C.
In the ruling, Reyes said that transgender service members did not hinder readiness, while also saying the defense based its assessments on the effectiveness and fitness of transgender soldiers on “pure conjecture.”
Trump’s policy allowed for case-by-case exemptions from the ban, provided enough “government interest” was at stake, but Reyes alleged this provision was “in name only.”
Reyes also lamented the “discrimination” that she said transgender persons face, saying there exists “government hostility—and at times outright discrimination—against transgender persons” while citing examples such as bathroom policies, adoption laws and laws targeting pronouns.
In oral arguments in the case, Reyes also said that the existence of only two biological sexes, male and female, was not “biologically correct.”
The ruling is set to go into effect on Friday, giving the DOJ time to file an emergency stay with the court, according to the ruling.
The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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