Service Members Challenge Trump's Transgender Order

Six transgender active-duty service members and two former service members who seek re-enlistment have filed the first lawsuit challenging President Trump's executive order that calls for revising policy on transgender troops and probably sets the stage for barring them from the armed forces. The six plaintiffs include a Sailor of the Year honoree, a Bronze Star recipient, and several who were awarded meritorious service medals.

• Trump's order, signed Monday, claims the sexual identity of transgender service members "conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle" and is harmful to military readiness and "unit cohesion." It requires Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to issue a revised policy.

• Army Capt. Gordon Herrero, one of the six active-duty plaintiffs, said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit filed Tuesday: "There's nothing about being transgender that makes me better or worse than any other soldier I serve alongside. We are all here because we are committed to our country, and we are passionate, willing, and able to serve effectively."
• The lawsuit is being filed by the same legal team that spent years during Trump's first administration fighting his ban on transgender troops, which the Supreme Court allowed to take effect even as the legal fight against it continued in the courts. Joe Biden scrapped the ban when he took office.

• The lawsuit challenges the executive order on the basis of equal protection and argues that it reveals animus against a specific group, the AP reports. "The law is very clear that the government can't base policies on disapproval of particular groups of people," said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "That's animus. And animus-based laws are presumed to be invalid and unconstitutional."
• Unlike the order from Trump's first term, the new executive order doesn't use the word "transgender," the Hill reports. It states that "expressing a false 'gender identity' divergent from an individual's sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service," adding: "A man's assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."

(More transgender stories.)