Pentagon lawyers will fight back against a judge’s order preventing the Trump administration from kicking transgender troops out of the military, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday.
Earlier this week, a Washington, DC, federal judge deemed President Trump’s executive order restoring the ban on transgender service in the military unconstitutional and described it as “soaked in animus.”
“We are appealing this decision, and we will win,” Hegseth wrote on X of the legal setback.
The Pentagon chief began developing a plan last month to carry out the president’s Jan. 27 executive order, which prohibits any service member who identifies as a gender other than their birth sex from serving or enlisting on grounds of mental unfitness.
On Tuesday, US District Judge Ana Reyes ordered the Pentagon to stop discharging transgender service members from the military and gave a Friday deadline for the administration to appeal before her preliminary injunction goes into effect.
“Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact,” Reyes, appointed by President Joe Biden, chided in a blistering opinion.
