An advocacy group in California sued President Trump in federal court on Tuesday over his directive to bar transgender military service, the fourth such lawsuit since he declared the new policy in a series of tweets in July.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit by Equality California include a 27-year-old soldier and two transgender people who are hoping to enlist in the military. The group is suing Trump as well as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer, acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, and acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke. The department includes the Coast Guard.
“President Trump has attacked American heroes who have risen above discrimination, hostility and lack of acceptance to serve our country by putting their lives on the line in its defense,” Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, said in a statement.
Last week, a group of transgender troops, a service academy midshipman and a teenage ROTC member who had filed suit Aug. 9 asked a D.C. district court for an injunction to stop the Trump administration from instituting any part of a transgender service ban while the case is being heard.
Similar lawsuits were filed in August by the American Civil Liberties Union in Maryland and Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN in Washington state.
Trump has ordered Mattis to abandon plans to begin recruiting transgender troops, eliminate coverage for transgender surgeries by March, and to decide whether to kick out those who are currently serving, which could include hundreds or thousands service members.
The order is aimed at rolling back an Obama administration personnel policy that allowed open transgender service.
Trump had cited costs and disruption in a July 26 series of tweets declaring that transgender troops would not be allowed to serve in any capacity, and his formal guidance to the Pentagon argues the last administration did not adequately prove that such a move would not hurt the military’s operations.
