The group of seven active-duty service members who brought the lawsuit argued that the policy "purposefully discriminates" soldiers based on their gender identity -- an argument that Department of Justice lawyers attempted to rebut by reframing the issue as medical, affecting only people who suffer gender dysphoria. Settle was unconvinced, writing
"The government falls well short of its burden to show that banning transgender service is substantially related to achieving unit cohesion, good order, or discipline. Although the Court gives deference to military decision making, it would be an abdication to ignore the government's flat failure to address plaintiffs' uncontroverted evidence that
While the Trump administration had argued that the judiciary should defer to military leadership and allow the ban, with DOJ lawyers writing in a filing to the D.C. Circuit last week that "plaintiffs offer no sound basis for concluding that the line the military has once again drawn falls outside constitutional bounds," Settle said at the time that
"Military service by Service members and applicants for military service who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria is incompatible with military service," the Feb. 26 memo said. "Individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are n
Settle became the second federal judge to block the policy, which he described as discriminatory and disconnected from the goals of "military readiness, unit cohesion, lethality, or any of the other touchstone phrases long used to exclude various groups from service." There is a separate nationwide injunction in place in a case out of the Court of