A group of transgender service members and rights groups are filing a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s restrictions on transgender troops in the military.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of six active duty transgender service members by GLAD Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), argues that the new executive order violates the equality guarantees of the U.S. Constitution.
Filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the suit says the six transgender service members would lose access to healthcare and retirement benefits as a result of the executive order.
“When you put on the uniform, differences fall away and what matters is your ability to do the job,” said Army 2nd Lt. Nicolas Talbott, named as plaintiff in the suit: Talbott v. Trump.
The new order, signed by Trump on Monday evening, requires Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to update medical standards to ensure they “prioritize readiness and lethality” and take action to “end the use of invented and identification-based pronouns” within DOD.
TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDERS BANNING ‘RADICAL GENDER IDEOLOGY,’ DEI INITIATIVES IN THE MILITARY
Advocates protest Trump’s transgender military ban during his first term. (Getty Images)
It says that expressing a “gender identity” different from an individual’s sex at birth does not meet military standards.
The order also restricts sleeping, changing and bathing facilities by biological sex. It’s not an immediate ban, but a direction for the secretary of Defense to implement such policies.
It revokes former President Joe Biden’s executive order that the White House argues “allowed for special circumstances to accommodate ‘gender identity’ in the military – to the detriment of military readiness and unit cohesion.”
The categorical ban on transgender service members was lifted in 2014 under President Barack Obama.
“I’ve been military my entire life. I was born on a military base,” said Navy Ensign Dan Danridge,…
