New judicial setback for the American president. Justice suspended Trump’s ban on transgender persons in the army on Tuesday 18 March, invoking the principle of equality. Citing the statement of independence from the United States that “all human beings are created equal”, a Washington Federal Judge suspended from March 21 a decree of President Donald Trump excluding transgender people from the armed forces.
“To ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, we will get rid of our army of transgender ideology,” said the Republican on January 27 in Florida, before specifying, on the aircraft of returning to Washington, having signed a decree in this sense. “Express a false ‘gender identity’, divergent to the sex of an individual cannot meet the rigorous standards necessary for military service”, can be read in the decree. A group of transgender people, soldiers or wishing to become so had challenged this decree in justice.
The Trump administration may have “defined a policy establishing a balance between the country’s need for a prepared army and the right of the Americans for equality of protection before the law,” wrote the judge. But the contested decree “is not this policy”, she believes, criticizing him for being “imbued with hostility” towards transgender people, without legal or rational justification for their exclusion from the armed forces.
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About 15,000 transgenderness out of two million soldiers
Under this decree, the US Department of Defense indicated in February its intention not only to stop the recruitment of transgender people in the armed forces, but also to expel those who are already part of it, unless special derogation.
Donald Trump had already targeted transgender people during his first mandate (2017-2021), preventing recruitment in the army of people with hormonal treatment or having already carried out medical change of sex. His Democratic successor Joe Biden had returned to this decision and had again authorized their enrollment, stressing that “all the Americans capable of serving in the armed forces of the United States should be able to do so”.
The number of transgender people in the US military would be around 15,000 out of approximately two million soldiers, according to estimates.