For the second time, a federal judge has dealt a blow to Donald Trump’s order banning transgender troops from the military.

U.S. District Judge Christine O’Hearn issued a temporary order preventing the military from firing two trans Air Force members who sued in response to the ban.

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Master Sgt. Logan Ireland and Staff Sgt. Nicholas Bear Bade were placed on administrative leave in response to Trump’s executive orders declaring gender is immutable and banning trans troops (Ireland also spoke out during the first Trump administration’s trans military ban).

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“Involuntary administrative separation is the way the U.S. Military fires people,” they state in the lawsuit, adding that “involuntary administrative separation carries with it a stigma that can follow a service member beyond their time in the military.”

O’Hearn wrote in her ruling that the “harms are immediate, ongoing, and significant, and cannot be remedied in the ordinary course of litigation.” She said Ireland and Bade “have exemplary service records” and “face severe personal and professional harm absent a preliminary injunction.” 

She also said the Trump administration has “not demonstrated any compelling justification whatsoever for immediate implementation of the Orders, particularly since transgender persons have been openly serving in the military for a number of years.” 

Two other legal challenges have been filed against Trump’s ban: The first was filed at the end of January and the second was filed near the start of February.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on the trans military ban. “In the self-evident truth that all people are created equal,’ all means all,” she wrote in the ruling. “Nothing more. And certainly nothing less.”

During court proceedings, Reyes called the order’s assertion that trans pronoun use undermines troop effectiveness “frankly ridiculous” and evidence of Trump’s “unadulterated animus” against trans individuals.

On X, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth responded to the ruling: “We’re appealing this decision, and we will win.”

A 2016 study by the RAND Corporation found that the cost of trans-related medical care is exceedingly small relative to the Department of Defense’s overall healthcare costs, that trans people do not harm military readiness, and that foreign militaries have successfully enlisted trans military service members without any negative effects on effectiveness, readiness, or unit cohesion.

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