Legal Insider: D.C. Federal Court Bars Transgender Military Service Member Ban

This is a sponsored column by attorneys John Berry and Kimberly Berry of Berry & Berry, PLLC, an employment and labor law firm located in Northern Virginia that specializes in federal employee, security clearance, retirement and private sector employee matters.

By John V. Berry

In a Memorandum Opinion dated October 30, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia barred the president from moving forward with his plan to ban transgender individuals from the military. The ban resulted from a July 26, 2017, statement from the president via Twitter informing the public of his intent to enact a ban. A Presidential Memorandum was formally issued on August 25, 2017. The court held that there was no support for the claim that the ongoing service of transgender people would affect the military at all.

Specifically, the court’s order bars enforcement of two important provisions in the Presidential Memorandum, which:

• Prohibited the military from accepting additional transgender individuals into active service; and
• Required the military to discharge current transgender service members by no later than March 23, 2018.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia issued the preliminary injunction, finding that a group of transgender service members would have a strong chance of prevailing in their lawsuit against the president in having the ban declared unconstitutional. The injunction will remain in place until the lawsuit is resolved or a judge or court of appeals removes it.

The Trump Administration would likely have to appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to attempt to enforce the new ban. Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s 76-page opinion can be found here.

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