Trans service members notch another win against Trump ban

SEATTLE (CN) — Transgender military members received another win on Thursday when a federal judge in Washington state joined a judge in the District of Columbia in blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to ban transgender people from serving in the military.

“Absent an injunction, all transgender service members are likely to suffer the irreparable harm of losing the military service career they have chosen, while otherwise qualified accession plaintiffs will lose the opportunity to serve,” U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle wrote in a 65-page memorandum opinion.

A week after he took office in January, President Donald Trump banned transgender people from the U.S. armed forces via an executive order that directed officials to separate current transgender service members from the military within 30 days.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in a Feb. 27 memo, gave Defense Department leaders one month to identify troops diagnosed with or being treated for gender dysphoria.

Siding with transgender military members that sued over the policy in February, Settle wrote that the policy “imposes a de facto blanket prohibition on transgender service.”

“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record,” the George W. Bush appointee added.

The government argued that the Trump should be given deference in his judgment on which military policies serve the country best, but Settle notes the plaintiffs, and thousands of other people, had been openly serving for the last four years under President Joe Biden, and some since 2016, without any harm.

“Any evidence that such service over the past four years harmed any of the military’s inarguably critical aims would be front and center. But there is none,” Settle wrote.

The judge blocked the government from implementing both the executive order and the ensuing Hegseth policy as well as “any other attempt to identify and separate transgender service members for being transgender” nationally.

Under the Hegseth policy, only transgender people who have never transitioned or attempted to transition and who are willing to serve in their birth sex are eligible for an exemption.

“As the policy stands, any attempt to seek internal review necessarily would be fruitless, and thus futile,” Settle wrote.

The government argued that the policy doesn’t discriminate on sex or transgender status — the basis upon which the plaintiffs are pursuing equal protection claims — but rather it discriminates against people who have or have had gender dysphoria.

“Common sense and binding authority defeat the government’s claim that it does not discriminate against transgender people,” Settle wrote. “The Hegseth Policy uses gender dysphoria as a proxy to ban all transgender service members.”

Settle noted that the policy avoids using the word “transgender” entirely. Plus, the policy discriminates on the basis of sex as well, the judge found.

The policy “mandates that service members conform with the gender stereotypes of their birth sex by requiring them to dress, meet grooming standards, and use pronouns typically associated with it” in order to have “honesty and integrity,” Settle determined.

The government argued that allowing transgender people to serve in the military would impair it from achieving unit cohesion, good order and discipline, which Settle noted was unsupported by the evidence in the record.

The government had also claimed that military deference should “insulate it from any meaningful review of its rushed decision to revert back to banning transgender service and punishing those who refuse to ‘voluntarily’ separate before it takes away their bonuses and separates them anyway.”

Settle found the lack of a study, evaluation or evidence preceding the ban and Hegseth policy reduces the baseline level of deference it should receive.

“The most pointed problem for the government is not just its irrational use of the evidence that it relies on, but the lack of evidence it provides and the ample evidence it simply ignores,” Settle wrote.

The judge found the plaintiffs — a group of transgender service members and the Gender Justice League — are likely to succeed on their constitutional rights violation claims, frequently noting how little evidence the government supplied to bolster its defense.

The injunction comes two days after the plaintiffs appeared before a packed courtroom in Tacoma, Washington, on Tuesday to implore Settle to block the policy, arguing it blatantly discriminates against trans people and falsely declares them unfit for service.

It also follows a March 18 preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington D.C. who determined Trump’s order wrongfully targets trans soldiers and effectively disqualifies all trans people from service unless they successfully receive an exemption.

The military executive order is a renewed effort by the Trump administration to pick up where it left off during Trump’s first term when he instituted a similar ban in 2017, reversing a policy allowing open service to transgender people instituted by the Obama administration.

Federal courts blocked that first Trump ban until the Supreme Court allowed it to go forward in 2019. Biden repealed the ban shortly after he took office in 2021.