Third challenge filed to Trump’s order on transgender troops

Two transgender service members are suing the Trump administration over a pair of executive orders targeting transgender Americans and their implementation by the U.S. military.

The lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey by two transgender men — Master Sgt. Logan Ireland and Staff Sgt. Nicholas Bear Bade — argues that President Trump’s executive orders proclaiming the government recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and barring trans people from serving openly in the military subject transgender service members “to unequal, harmful, and demeaning treatment.”

Ireland and Bade, represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, are also challenging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Acting Air Force Secretary Gary Ashworth’s implementation of those orders.

Both Ireland and Bade are members of the U.S. Air Force with a combined 20 years of experience, according to court documents, and began their gender transitions more than a decade ago. They have each been placed on administrative absence and told they can only continue serving if they do so according to their birth sex.

“It is not possible, though, for either Plaintiff to serve as a woman because each one has medically transitioned to be and live as a man,” Monday’s lawsuit states. “And given the implementation timeline that the Trump Administration has publicized, both Plaintiffs reasonably fear that, as early as March 26, 2025, involuntary administrative separation proceedings will be initiated against them because of their transgender status.”

The Pentagon, in a Feb. 26 policy memo, directed military leaders to begin identifying transgender service members within 30 days and begin “separation actions” within 60 days.

The memo, like Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order on transgender troops, suggests a history of gender dysphoria — severe psychological distress that stems from a mismatch between a person’s gender identity and sex at birth — is incompatible with military service.

Military personnel diagnosed with gender dysphoria may be retained “on a case-by-case basis,” provided there is a compelling government interest in doing so, the memo said. But service members will have to prove they never took steps to transition genders and demonstrate 36 months of stability living in line with their birth sex “without clinically significant distress.”

Trump and administration officials have sought to equate trans identity with deception and cast transgender people in the armed forces as a threat to military readiness and unit cohesion. “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member,” Trump’s executive order states.

A 2016 RAND Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon found that allowing trans individuals to serve had no negative impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness or readiness.

Monday’s lawsuit, the third to challenge Trump’s executive order on transgender troops and one of at least a dozen filed against his order on the government’s recognition of only two sexes, asks the court to block the administration from carrying out the directives.

“Simply put, Master Sergeant Ireland and Staff Sergeant Bade have a constitutional right not to be separated from military service based on their transgender status, a characteristic that has nothing to do with their fitness or ability to serve,” the lawsuit states.

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