On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes — nominated to her post by former President Biden — issued a preliminary injunction to block the Trump administration from banning transgender troops from serving in the U.S. military.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who was appointed by Joe Biden, just ruled that the Pentagon can’t enforce President Trump’s order banning transgender people from serving in the military. pic.twitter.com/aGOsyNIKw0
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 19, 2025
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who in the past worked to defeat California Proposition 209, which wanted to ban state governmental institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity regarding employment, claimed in her 79-page opinion that military leaders were “responsible for integrating transgender persons into open military service,” and asserted that recruiting, unit cohesion, and military readiness had improved since 2021.
On January 27, President Trump issued Executive Order 14183, which revoked Biden’s Executive Order 14004, which permitted transgenders to serve openly in the military. Trump’s order stated:
… the Armed Forces have been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion. Longstanding Department of Defense (DoD) policy (DoD Instruction (DoDI) 6130.03) provides that it is the policy of the DoD to ensure that service members are “[f]ree of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.”
“Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” the order continued. “Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. 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.”
On February 26, Defense Secretary Hegseth issued a memo whose policy stated, “Military service by service members and applicants for military service who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria is incompatible with military service.”
“In 2022 and 2023, the Army missed its recruitment goal by nearly twenty-five per cent—about fifteen thousand troops a year,” The New Yorker reported last month. “It hit the mark last year, but only by reducing the target by more than ten thousand. The Navy has also fared badly: it failed to reach its goals in 2023, then met them in 2024 by filling out the ranks with recruits of a lower standard; nearly half measured below average on an aptitude exam. The Army Reserve hasn’t met its benchmark since 2016, and the ranks are so depleted that active-duty officers have been put in charge of reserve units.
Reyes claimed the Trump administration “rushed” their policy into action, comparing it to previous policies that allowed transgenders into the military. “The law does not demand that the Court rubber-stamp illogical judgments based on conjecture,” she argued.
She also accused the transgender ban of having “animus.” Reyes wrote, “The Court could stop here in its analysis and comfortably conclude that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that the Military Ban is motivated by animus and is not tailored to meet its stated goals.”
