WASHINGTON — A federal judge tossed out the administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit against the administration’s ban on transgender people in the military, The Hill reported on Monday.
From The Hill:
In an opinion issued Monday, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote that the transgender troop policy outlined by Defense Secretary James Mattis in March was not different from President Trump’s plan to ban transgender people from the military.
“Instead, at a fundamental level, the Mattis Implementation Plan is just that — a plan that implements the president’s directive that transgender people be excluded from the military,” wrote Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of former President Clinton.
“Nothing in this Memorandum Opinion represents a final adjudication of whether defendants’ actions were constitutional. The court merely holds that whatever legal relevance the Mattis Implementation Plan might have, it has not fundamentally changed the circumstances of this lawsuit such that plaintiffs’ claims should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, or that the need for the court’s preliminary injunction has dissipated.”
“The Trump administration’s arguments to dismiss our lawsuit and move forward with the trans military ban are full of sweeping generalizations and false stereotypes about transgender people,” Jennifer Levi, GLAD’s transgender rights project director, said in a statement to the newspaper. “It’s clear Judge Kollar-Kotelly isn’t buying it—and neither should anyone else.”