A Biden-appointed federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump Pentagon from implementing its policy that would bar transgender troops from serving in the U.S. military without a waiver.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes granted a preliminary injunction for the implementation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s policy, issued last month. The injunction was sought by 20 plaintiffs who are currently serving and in the process of enlisting .
Reyes, however, gave the Trump Justice Department until March 21 to appeal the ruling.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 27, 2025, prohibiting transgender troops from enlisting or serving in the military.
The executive order noted that longstanding DOD policy ensures that service members be “[f]ree of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.”
It added:
Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, 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.
Among its provisions, the executive order also explicitly banned males from using or sharing sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for females, and vice versa.
Hegseth subsequently issued a directive on February 7, 2025, pausing the accession of individuals with a history of gender dysphoria, as well as pausing all unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for service members.
A follow-up DOD memo on February 26, 2025, gave the military services 30 days to begin separation of troops who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria and who are not granted a waiver.
However, the judge sympathized with the plaintiffs, calling it a “cruel irony” 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.”
“The court’s opinion is long, but its premise is simple. In the self-evident truth that ‘all people are created equal,’ all means all. Nothing more. And certainly nothing less,” Reyes wrote — unswayed by the argument that gender-affirming hormone treatment and gender-affirming surgery treatment can limit a service member’s deployability.
She argued that some studies found that “Gender-Affirming Hormone Treatment and Gender-Affirming Surgery treatment improves psychological well-being, mental health, and quality of life.”
“Each treatment method reduces gender dysphoria, depression, anxiety, psychological distress, and depressive symptoms,” she claimed. Further, “long-term studies show that regret rates are extremely low, with most individuals reporting improved quality of life, body image satisfaction, and overall well-being,” she wrote.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller posted on X after the ruling: “District court judges have now decided they are in command of the Armed Forces…is there no end to this madness?”
Hegseth reposted Miller’s post from his personal account.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department called the ruling “the latest example of an activist judge attempting to seize power at the expense of the American people, who decisively voted to elect President Trump,” according to CBS News.
Breitbart News has reached out to the Justice Department for a response.
A defense official said as of December 9, 2025, there were about 4,200 service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria, out of about 2 million active-duty and reserve forces.
A January Congressional Research Service report said roughly 1,892 active duty service members received gender-affirming care from the DOD between January 2016 and May 2021.
Despite that small number, according to a February 26, 2025, Pentagon memo, the DOD spent $52 million on treating gender dysphoria between 2015 and 2024.
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on ”X”, Truth Social, or on Facebook.
Be the first to comment