D.C. appeals court won't block Trump's trans military ban — just yet

A federal appeals court has declined to block the Trump administration’s ban on transgender people in the military but may revisit the issue if there is action against trans service members.

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A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday issued an administrative stay of U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes’s preliminary injunction against Donald Trump’s executive order calling for a ban on trans troops and the Department of Defense’s plans to implement it, Reuters reports.

Reyes had issued the injunction March 18 in Talbott v. Trump, saying the ban was likely unconstitutional and was “soaked in animus and dripping with pretext.” She also wrote, “The ban at bottom invokes derogatory language to target a vulnerable group in violation of the Fifth Amendment.” She delayed her injunction from going into effect until last Friday to give the administration time to appeal. Last week she denied the government’s emergency motion to dissolve the injunction, but the administration quickly went to the appeals court.

The appellate court issued the administrative stay “to give it time to consider whether to allow the ban to take effect while it considers the government’s appeal” in the case, brought by current and aspiring trans service members, Reuters notes.

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The stay “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits” of the lawsuit, the judges wrote. If “any action occurs that negatively impacts service members,” the plaintiffs can ask for the stay to be lifted, and the judges will consider it “expeditiously,” they wrote.

“It is a stay order that signals to the military that it should not harm service members while the stay motion proceeds,” Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law senior director of transgender and queer rights, told Reuters. GLAD Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rights are representing the plaintiffs.

The panel was a mix of Republican and Democratic appointees. Judge Justin Walker was appointed by Trump during his first term Judge Karen Henderson by President George H.W. Bush. Judge Patricia Millett was appointed by President Barack Obama.

In another suit brought against the ban, Commander Emily Shilling et al. v. United States et al., a federal judge in Washington State issued a preliminary injunction last week, also blocking the ban.