Two civil rights organizations filed lawsuits Monday against President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service in the military.
The two cases argue the ban, set into motion by President Trump in July, violates U.S. constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process under the Fifth Amendment.
“President Trump cast aside the rigorous, evidence-based policy of the Open Service Directive, and replaced it with discredited myths and stereotypes, uninformed speculation, and animus against people who are transgender,” a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) read.
On Friday, the Trump administration sent a memo to the Department of Defense directing it to implement the ban.
The policy would give the Pentagon the ability to expel military members based on a standard of whether they could be deployed to war zones or take part in other missions. It would also deny admittance to new transgender people who want to join the military, and would end spending for medical treatment related to sexual reassignment for current transgender service members.
Trump in his tweets based his decision on what he said were the “tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
The move came a year after the Pentagon under former President Barack Obama announced transgender military members would be allowed to serve openly.
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