Judge rules Trump's ban on transgender military troops cannot take effect as of yet

Guess what? Trump's ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, which the Pentagon says will not be a ban, may not as of yet be implemented, thanks to a recent ruling.

From Dominic Holden at Buzzfeed:

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.”

What does this mean? We will see:

 Still, it wasn’t immediately clear if Kollar-Kotelly’s decision would change a timeline to implement the ban, which the Pentagon said will take effect on April 12, due to pending action from an appeals court. 

The underlying legal situation is complicated. The case is one of four in which judges issued nationwide injunctions that blocked the policy from being implemented. Courts had lifted three of the injunctions while all of the legal challenges continue — though the status of this fourth injunction in the DC court was disputed. The Justice Department argued that when the DC Court of Appeals vacated the injunction in January, it ceased to exist and the Pentagon was free to instate a ban. LGBT advocacy lawyers countered that the appellate court still hadn’t issued a mandate to lift the injunction, because a series of procedural steps had to first be undertaken while the plaintiffs decide to request a rehearing. 

The Trump administration issued its memo to set up the ban anyway. That led to Tuesday’s decision from Kollar-Kotelly.

The entire article is worth a read.