Second judge blocks Trump policy banning transgender service members

A federal judge in Washington state on Thursday blocked enforcement of President Trump’s order to bar transgender troops from serving openly in the military, the second to halt the policy from taking effect nationwide. 

In a 65-page ruling, Judge Benjamin Hale Settle of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington said the Trump administration had offered no evidence to support removing transgender service members, who served without issue under the Biden administration, from the military. 

“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record,” Settle, an appointee of former President George W. Bush and a retired captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, wrote in his decision. “The government’s unrelenting reliance on deference to military judgment is unjustified in the absence of any evidence supporting ‘the military’s’ new judgment reflected in the Military Ban—in its equally considered and unquestionable judgment, that very same military had only the week before permitted active-duty plaintiffs (and some thousands of others) to serve openly.” 

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

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. similarly blocked implementation of Trump’s order last week, ruling that the policy is “soaked in animus.” The Pentagon is appealing that decision. 

On Monday, a third federal judge in New Jersey temporarily blocked the military from separating two transgender airmen in a more limited ruling. 

Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs in each case, said Thursday in a statement that the harms associated with Trump’s ban on trans military service “are gut wrenching.” 

“In each of these cases, the government did not even attempt to claim that any evidence supported its position. There is no reason to discharge individuals who are serving capably and honorably,” Minter said.