WASHINGTON, D.C. – A federal judge late Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops in the U.S. military, adding to the list of legal setbacks to the administration’s agenda.
U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Ana Reyes ordered Trump’s Department of Defense to revert to military policy in place before he issued an executive order prohibiting openly transgender individuals from joining or continuing their service in the armed forces.
Trump’s executive order, signed in the late hours of Jan. 27, alleges the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” Further, the order asserts that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
The order reversed a 2021 policy that allowed transgender individuals to openly serve in the military.
In a 79-page opinion, Reyes criticized the administration for lack of data proving the claims in Trump’s order.
“Transgender persons have served openly since 2021, but Defendants have not analyzed their service. That is unfortunate. Plaintiffs’ service records alone are Exhibit A for the proposition that transgender persons can have the warrior ethos, physical and mental health, selflessness, honor, integrity, and discipline to ensure military excellence,” Reyes wrote.
Reyes’ order goes into effect Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Reyes’ ruling is among other recent court orders jamming the Trump administration’s legally questionable actions, including mass firings of federal workers and flying immigrants to El Salvador and Honduras under a wartime authority and in defiance of a judge’s court order.
Then-President Joe Biden nominated Reyes in 2023, and the Senate confirmed her in a 51-47 vote.
Trump aid blasts ruling
A representative for the Department of Justice said the ruling “is the latest example of an activist judge attempting to seize power at the expense of the American people” who elected Trump.
The DOJ has “vigorously defended” Trump and “will continue to do so,” according to the statement provided to States Newsroom attributed to an unnamed spokesperson.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller slammed the decision on social media Wednesday, saying federal judges have “assumed the mantle of Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security and Commander-in-Chief.”
“Each day, they change the foreign policy, economic, staffing and national security policies of the Administration,” Miller wrote on the social media platform X. “Each day the nation arises to see what the craziest unelected local federal judge has decided the policies of the government of the United States shall be. It is madness.”
Trump’s social media attack on a federal judge Tuesday prompted a rare rebuke from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Eight transgender active-duty service members and transgender individuals who are actively pursuing enlistment in the armed forces brought the case against the administration.
The plaintiffs have a combined 130 years of military service in wide ranging roles and numerous deployments around the world. One is currently deployed in an active combat zone, according to Reyes’ opinion.
The plaintiffs reside or are stationed in California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, the District of Columbia and Wisconsin.
This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.
