US: A Judge Has Ruled That Transgender Military Ban Can’t Take Effect Yet After All

The Trump administration was wrong to claim last week it could begin to implement a ban on transgender troops, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said in a decision issued Tuesday that rebuked officials for insisting a court order blocking the ban since 2017 had been lifted.

“Defendants were incorrect in claiming that there was no longer an impediment,” says Kollar-Kotelly’s notice in US District Court in Washington, DC. “Defendants remain bound by this Court’s preliminary injunction to maintain the status quo.”

The decision makes clear the Pentagon may not yet implement a ban on transgender troops, despite several claims by the Justice Department last week that it was free of any blockade on enacting new policy to block transgender recruits from the armed forces.

The administration released a memo last week saying that it planned to enact the ban next month after the Justice Department said in a court filing “there is no longer any impediment” that stopped them from doing so. “We are grateful for the district court’s clarity in stating, unequivocally, that the injunction against the transgender military ban remains in place,” Jennifer Levi, an attorney for GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, a group representing the challengers, told BuzzFeed News on Tuesday. Read more via Buzzfeed