The federal judge presiding over a challenge to Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service members in the U.S. military unloaded on government lawyers on Friday after the administration asked to dissolve a ruling that blocks the president’s order from taking effect.
On Tuesday, District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C., temporarily blocked the Department of Defense from removing trans troops, a policy she condemned as “soaked in animus” relying on language that is “unabashedly demeaning” with evidence that “bears no relation to fact.”
Her order was set to take effect at 10 a.m. Friday to give the administration time to appeal.
But moments before the deadline, lawyers with the Department of Justice announced new guidance for trans service members and called on the judge to dissolve her order.
During a hearing to discuss the request, Justice Department attorney Jean Lin said the guidance does not target “trans people, per se” but “people who have or have had symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria.”
Reyes — who has repeatedly reprimanded government lawyers for their failure to respond to questions in several hours-long hearings in this case — immediately lost her patience.
She accused the Justice Department of trying to “gaslight” her.
“I am not going to abide by government officials saying one thing to the public — what they really mean to the public — and coming in here to the court and telling me something different, like I’m an idiot,” Judge Reyes said.
Lawyers could not answer the judge’s questions about who even came up with the new rule and could not offer up any evidence that a ban on trans service members is addressing any current problem in the military.
“Everything in the record is that it’s a pretext [for discrimination],” she said. “There is nothing in the record that this was a deliberative process.”
She said she is not asking questions “for sport.”
“As of today you can’t even tell me if [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] looked at this,” she said. “You won’t tell me because you don’t know.”
At one point, Lin characterized the judge’s ruling this week as “your opinion about what the policy should be.”
“Every single sentence in my opinion was supported by a case cite or a record cite,” Reyes fired back. She invited lawyers to find any instance of her ruling that wasn’t supported by evidence.
“Fair enough, your honor,” Lin said.
A painfully awkward silence followed.
Reyes later discussed one of the plaintiffs, a trans service member with a history of treatment for gender dysphoria who is in active combat, and asked Lin why would she should be recalled and discharged.
Lin deferred to the policy of the Trump administration, and said the concern is “what kind of impact that would have.”
“We have potentially hundreds if not thousands of people in the military … and they’ve had no problem,” Reyes replied.
Pentagon policy tells them they are “inherently, mentally and physically unfit to serve” and yet the Justice Department can’t say how they determined that, or who decided, Reyes said.
Reyes ordered that any of the 20 plaintiffs who have been put on administrative leave be allowed to return to work immediately.
Lawyers will have until Friday afternoon to decide next steps, otherwise, the Justice Department can take their arguments to a federal appeals court, Reyes said.
"If you all refuse to cooperate, you are creating the fire drill" at the appellate court, Reyes told lawyers for the Justice Department.
The administration’s executive action directing the Pentagon to remove trans service members also blocks new trans recruits and cuts access to gender-affirming care, joining a suite of Trump-driven policies targeting trans Americans, all fueled by an executive order that removes federal recognition of trans, nonbinary and intersex people from across the government. All actions have been challenged in court.
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