President Donald Trump listens as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the president’s executive order purporting to ban transgender people from serving in the military.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction halting the policy, reasoning that the plaintiffs were likely to win on their claims that the ban unconstitutionally violated equal protection by discriminating based on sex and transgender status.
“Plaintiffs face a violation of their constitutional rights, which constitutes irreparable harm. 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 wrote in the 79-page order. “Defendants have not shown they will be burdened by continuing the status quo pending this litigation, and avoiding constitutional violations is always in the public interest.”
The courts order stems from a lawsuit filed on Jan. 28, 2025, by Nicolas Talbott and seven other individuals challenging Trump’s executive order, which was signed on his first day back in office. The complaint alleged that the ban on transgender service members violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment by discriminating against people “based on their sex and based on their transgender status.” Several additional plaintiffs were added to the suit after it was initially filed.
The administration’s policy was slated to go into effect this month.
In explaining how the military ban discriminated on basis of sex, Reyes cited to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. In that case, the court held that the prohibition on sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 included discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status. The majority opinion was penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed to the court by Donald Trump.
