A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from serving or enlisting in the military.
The decision, issued by District Court Judge Ana Reyes on Tuesday, was hailed by LGBTQ rights advocates as “tremendously good news” and a “complete victory.”
It comes nearly a week after Reyes heard arguments on a motion for a preliminary injunction asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block enforcement of Trump’s “cruel” executive order while the future of the ban is decided in court.
Earlier this year, the legal nonprofits GLAD Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) filed a federal lawsuit challenging Trump’s executive order on behalf of more than a dozen service members and enlistees across all branches of the military.
In a strongly worded decision, Reyes wrote Tuesday that the plaintiffs have established a “likelihood of success on the merits,” noting the ban violates guarantees of equal protection because it discriminates based on a person’s trans identity.
“Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed — some risking their lives — to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,” Reyes, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, wrote in the 79-page decision.
The ban is also “soaked in animus and dripping with pretext,” she wrote. “Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”
Implementation of the “harmful ban” would’ve “ended the careers of dedicated transgender servicemembers and created personnel gaps, leaving others to fill critical roles, NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter said in a statement shared with the press. “The court acted quickly today to shield our troops from the harmful effects of this irrational ban,” Minter said.
The Trump Administration will have until Friday to file an emergency stay to appeal Reyes’ ruling.