In a court filing on Saturday, the Trump administration admitted that it can’t provide the data to prove trans service members are a threat to “honesty, humility, and integrity” in the U.S. military.

The Justice Department lawyers said they don’t even know how many trans people are serving.

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Donald Trump bans trans people from serving in the military in hateful executive order
His order says that no trans person is “honorable, truthful, and disciplined.”

Trump’s executive order, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” claimed that trans service members are “incompatible” with military service and that gender-affirming care is a drain on military resources.

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But the Saturday filing in the case Talbott v. Trump, brought by GLAD Law and Lambda Legal, is bereft of facts proving either claim.

Trump administration lawyers admitted that the Department of Defense does not track service members by gender identity, and officials have no concrete data on how many trans troops are serving. Their estimates rely on a RAND Corporation study that said between 1,320 and 6,630 transgender personnel were serving — in 2016.

“The Department of Defense does not track service members or applicants by gender identity and has no means of searching for the requested information,” government lawyers told the judge in the filing.

Administration lawyers also admitted that the Pentagon spent just $52 million on gender-affirming care for trans troops over the course of almost a decade (the military has an almost trillion-dollar budget). The amount “is but a small fraction of DoD’s overall budget,” government lawyers confessed.

The administration also failed to name any other mental health condition besides gender dysphoria that would disqualify service members for “honesty, humility, and integrity,” which the ban cites as justification to expel trans troops and officers.

While referencing other “psychiatric and behavioral disorders,” lawyers couldn’t cite a single specific case or example that would trigger the same automatic ban on service that gender dysphoria would under their proposed new rules.

The filing was the latest indication that the administration faces high legal hurdles in its mission to purge the military of trans service members.

“This is proof that the trans military ban is a solution in search of a problem,” Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings told the Advocate. “If trans people’s presence was somehow disruptive to the military, they would have the data to prove it — and they don’t. This proves that this order is motivated by animus rather than reason.”

National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) legal director Shannon Minter, who’s representing the plaintiffs in Talbott v Trump, was confident in the group’s argument.

“On March 12, Judge Reyes will consider this and other information as GLAD Law and NCLR pursue a preliminary injunction to stop this harmful ban from going into effect and ensure that transgender troops who meet every qualification to serve can continue their commitment to serving our country,” Minter said in a statement.

Also on Saturday, trans service members in the Air Force and Space Force were advised to seek voluntary separation from the military or suffer the threat of involuntary discharge after March 26.

Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Gwendolyn R. DeFilippi reiterated the administration’s claim that service members with gender dysphoria are “incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.”

While the administration continues to come up short with facts justifying the trans ban, it’s moving to discredit the judge overseeing Talbott v. Trump.

Last week, the Justice Department filed a complaint against U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes for “hostile and egregious misconduct.” The complaint filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals accuses Reyes of using the acronym “WTF” in court and questioning a DOJ lawyer about his religion.

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