WASHINGTON — The military will start accepting transgender recruits starting January 1, media reports said.
National Public Radio reported that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly upheld an earlier decision to temporarily block President Trump’s ban on Monday.
Two federal judges put the ban on hold after several lawsuits were filed against the ban. The Trump administration had appealed the hold.
From NPR:
In her decision, she noted that she was “not convinced by the vague claims” that the Jan. 1 deadline needed to be delayed. At the same time, she reiterated her October argument that trans service members have a strong case and questioned the administration’s “portrayal of their situation as an emergency,” considering more than three weeks passed before it filed the appeal.
“If complying with the military’s previously established January 1, 2018 deadline to begin accession was as unmanageable as Defendants now suggest, one would have expected Defendants to act with more alacrity,” she added in the final line of her decision.
The full text of the decision can be read on the NPR website.
The Department of Defense said in a statement to NPR that it would comply with the court order reluctantly.
