A federal judge has suspended President Donald Trump’s order banning transgender people from serving in the military, ruling that it likely violated their constitutional rights.
Trump on Jan. 27 had signed the order, claiming that being transgender goes against a soldier’s values of honesty, discipline, and honor, even in their personal life. The president also argued that it negatively affected military readiness.
Judge calls Trump’s transgender military ban biased
Judge Ana Reyes, from Washington, D.C., and an appointee of former President Joe Biden, said Trump’s ban likely went against the constitutional rights of transgender troops.
Reyes noted that this ban “is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact,” CNN reported.
“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.”
Court blocks military ban
Army Reserves 2nd Lt. Nicolas Talbott was one of 14 transgender service members who were named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He was anxious, fearing being removed from the military the following week.
Talbott, who felt a huge sense of relief upon hearing the ruling, said serving in the military was his dream job, and he had finally achieved it. He had feared losing it, but the judge’s decision gave him hope.
In 2016, the Defense Department allowed transgender people to serve in the military. However, during Trump’s first term, he introduced a ban on transgender service members, which the Supreme Court later approved. When President Joe Biden took office, he canceled the ban and allowed transgender troops to serve again.
Following the ruling Tuesday, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, took to X (formerly known as Twitter) and wrote, “District court judges have now decided they are in command of the Armed Forces…is there no end to this madness?”
She was the second judge that day to rule against a decision taken by the president.
Both rulings happened within hours of another controversy, where Trump called for the impeachment of a different judge who had blocked deportation flights.
Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday rejected Trump’s call to impeach a judge who ruled against his deportation plans. Roberts stated that impeachment should not be used to challenge court decisions, as legal appeals exist for that.
This response came after Trump criticized Judge James E. Boasberg for blocking deportation flights using an old wartime law, escalating tensions between the executive and judiciary.
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