Transgender troop restrictions can stand, federal court rules

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court in Washington sided with the Trump administration Friday, saying restrictions on transgender men and women serving in the military can stand.

The decision lifted an injunction that had barred the government from limiting their service.

The unsigned order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has no immediate impact because federal judges in three other cases have temporarily prevented the administration from implementing its policy. Even so, the five-page ruling reversing a lower-court decision was a blow to the civil rights and gay rights organizations challenging the policy.

In reversing a lower court ruling, the appeals court wrote, “the District Court made an erroneous finding that the [administration’s policy] was the equivalent of a blanket ban on transgender service.” The appeals court order came after oral argument last month before Judges Thomas Griffith, Robert Wilkins and Stephen Williams.

The appeals court cautioned that its order was not a final ruling on the merits of the challenge, but that judges must give deference to military leaders when it comes to policy decisions about standards for service.

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, called the decision “cursory and misinformed” and said it “rests on the utter fiction that this ban is not a ban. Every other court has immediately understood that when you say you can serve only if you serve in your birth sex, that is a ban. It is dangerous and irresponsible.”

President Donald Trump initially announced a ban on transgender military service via Twitter in July 2017, citing what he viewed as the “tremendous medical costs and disruption.” It reversed President Barack Obama’s policy of allowing transgender men and women to serve openly and receive funding for sex-reassignment surgery.

The court rulings were met with another revision from then Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who issued a plan to bar men and women from the military who identify with a gender different from their biological sex and who are seeking to undergo the medical transition. The new plan makes exceptions for about 900 transgender individuals who are already serving and for others who would serve in accordance with their biological sex.