Federal judge reaffirms block on the Trump administration’s transgender troop limits News
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Federal judge reaffirms block on the Trump administration’s transgender troop limits

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday rebutted the Trump administration’s claim that no legal restrictions remained to preclude the implementation of a contentious transgender limitation on the military.

In a three-page notice, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly called the administration’s assumption that it could move forward with the ban “incorrect.” The administration via the US Defense Department signed a memo on March 12 that would restrict the admittance of transgender people in the military. The move was prompted by a Supreme Court decision in January that lifted three of the four injunctions against the ban that were issued in other cases.

Kollar-Kotelly rejected the argument that these decisions affected the DC Circuit’s ban, stating, “The fact that three other nationwide preliminary injunctions which had been in place are now stayed has no impact on the continued effectiveness of this Court’s preliminary injunction” and “that preliminary injunction will remain in place until the DC Circuit issues its mandate vacating the preliminary injunction.”

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