Two national LGBTQ legal organizations filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday that defies the executive order of President Donald Trump, which prohibits transgender people from serving and enlisting in the army. The demand was filed on behalf of six members of the Active Trans Service and two trans people who seek to enlist.
“This prohibition delivers the fundamental American values of equal opportunities and judge people for their merit,” said Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender rights and strangers at GLBTQ Legal Defensates & Defenders (Glad Law), in a statement. “Make the door to the qualified patriots who meet all the standards and want nothing more than to serve their country, simply to appease a political agenda. That is not just non -American, but weakens our country by moving talented service members who put their lives on the line every day for our nation. “
Glad Law and the National Lesbian Rights Center filed the lawsuit against Trump and several military officers in the United States District Court for the Columbia district one day after the president signed an executive order that restricts the transgender military service. The order, entitled “Prioritizing military excellence and preparation”, restored a policy of Trump’s first mandate and terminates an order of 2021 by the then President Joe Biden that allowed trans people would get ready and openly served.
The new policy is aimed at “protecting the American people and our homeland as the most lethal and more effective struggle of the world,” according to the executive order. He adds that “the search for military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other harmful ideologies for the cohesion of unity.”
The Executive Order requires that the Defense Department update its medical standards within 60 days to restrict the coverage of certain care related to the transition, “to end the use of the pronoun invented and based on identification” and prohibit people assigned to people assigned to Men at birth to use women’s dream, change and change and change bathroom facilities.
“The prohibition of President Trump of the transgender people who serve in the military discriminate against the plaintiffs based on their sex and based on their transgender state, without legal justification, in violation of the component of equal protection of the due clause of due process of The fifth amendment, “establishes the demand on Tuesday. “Instead of based on any legitimate governmental purpose, the prohibition reflects the animosity towards transgender people due to their transgender state.”
The White House did not immediately respond to the request for NBC News comments on the demand.
One of the plaintiffs, the second army lieutenant, Nicolas Talbott, is a 31 -year -old transgender man who has served with a distinction in an army reservations unit in Pennsylvania, according to the lawsuit. Talbott, adds the suit, was appointed graduate of honor in the basic combat training for his drilling sergeants for going further in training and passing to leadership roles. “
“When you get the uniform, the differences fall and what matters is your ability to do the job,” Talbott said in a statement. “Each individual must comply with the same objective and rigorous qualifications to serve. It has been my dream and my goal to serve my country since I have memory. My transgender is not related to my dedication to the mission, my commitment to my unity or my ability to do my duties according to the high expected standards of me and each service member. “
The Department of Defense does not publicly inform how many transgender people are serving in the Army, and estimates vary widely. Two reports that came out before trans people could serve openly, a 2014 report from the Williams Institute of UCLA Law and a 2016 report by Rand Corp., estimated that there were 15,500 (Williams Institute) and between 2,150 and 10,790 trans people serving .
In addition to the executive order that restricts military service for trans people, Trump issued an executive order hours after its inauguration aimed at “gender ideology.” The Order declared that the United States government will recognize only two sexes, men and women, and that “these sexes are not changing and are based on a fundamental and incontrovertible reality”, which results in the State Department to freeze all the Passport requests requesting a change of sex marker. .