Five transgender troops will soon ask a federal court for an injunction to temporarily halt President Trump from moving forward with any ban on their service, according to an attorney working on the case.
The request for a preliminary injunction could come within weeks and will be the next step in their lawsuit against Trump, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other administration officials for the president’s tweeted declaration in July that transgender military service will not be allowed in any capacity, said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is sponsoring the suit.
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 9 in a D.C. district court. An injunction could block Trump from imposing new restrictions on transgender service while the case is being considered by the court and lead the ban on a similar path as the president’s earlier foreign travel ban, which was hung up by a series of federal court injunctions before reaching the U.S. Supreme Court.
Minter said there is no definite timeline for the injunction filing and his group, NCLR, is working quickly on what it sees as a crucial motion. Lawyers with the group GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders are also working on the case.
“The most important aspect is that the president’s actions are not only disrespectuful of transgender service members but to the institution itself,” he said.
The five transgender troops at the center of the lawsuit — all identified as “Jane Doe” in the filing — are members of the Coast Guard, National Guard, Army and Air Force.
“Any way I read the facts of this case, it seems like the standards for issuing an injunction are there” said Alex Wagner, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
Wagner, who served as former Army Secretary Eric Fanning’s chief of staff, said the court will likely be weighing a handful of legal criteria when considering a motion for an injuction, including whether the transgender troops could suffer irreparable harm if a service ban is imposed before the case is resolved and whether there is a public interest in blocking such service.
“There doesn’t seem to be any public interest for military leaders to order up and mostly down their chains of command to identify, locate, discharge transgender service members who are doing their jobs every single day and not creating any problems,” he said.
An injunction decision could also decide on what judge hears the motion and the Trump administration would have the option to appeal, but the litigation over a ban on transgender service “could take years,” Wagner said.
Mattis said this week that Pentagon officials are working with the White House on final guidance for the military following the president’s series of tweets announcing the ban.
The Pentagon is planning a new study on transgender service after it receives the White House guidance and will use the research to determine a personnel policy, Mattis said. The military last summer began allowing transgender people already in the armed forces to serve openly after a series of reviews, and was directed to implement a policy allowing enlistment of transgender people, which Mattis postponed.
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” Trump wrote. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
The president, following up on campaign pledges, issued an executive order in January banning travel from six predominantly Muslim countries with histories of terrorism.
But the order was immediately challenged in court by the ACLU and other legal organizations and a federal judge granted an injunction. The Supreme Court eventually allowed a version of the travel restrictions to be implemented.
