Rights groups file lawsuit against Trump's transgender troops order

By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Transgender rights advocacy groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order that targeted transgender service members, in what would be the first legal challenge to a cornerstone of his conservative agenda at the Pentagon.

Trump signed an executive order on Monday that took aim at transgender troops in a personal way -- at one point saying that a man identifying as a woman was "not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."

The lawsuit, filed jointly by GLAD Law and the National Center For Lesbian Rights (NCLR) in a district court in Washington D.C., challenges the constitutionality of the executive order and said it violated the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment.

The plaintiffs include six transgender service members and two individuals looking to join the military.

Reuters was first to report plans to file the lawsuit.

The executive orders signed by Trump said that expressing a "gender identity" different from an individual's sex at birth did not meet military standards.

While the order banned the use of "invented" pronouns in the military, it did not answer basic questions including whether transgender soldiers currently serving in the military would be allowed to stay and, if not, how they would be removed.

Trump's order has been heavily criticized by rights groups and some Democratic lawmakers.

"President Trump's Executive Order is an insult to the bravery and service of transgender servicemembers," Senator Andy Kim said.

"How can we have a military that protects all Americans if it doesn't recognize and respect all Americans?" he added.

During his first term, Trump announced that he would ban transgender troops from serving in the military. He did not fully follow through with that ban - his administration froze their recruitment while allowing serving personnel to remain.

President Joe Biden overturned the decision when he took office in 2021.

The military has about 1.3 million active-duty personnel, Department of Defense data show. While transgender rights advocates say there are as many as 15,000 transgender service members, officials say the number is in the low thousands.

When Trump announced his first ban in 2017, he said the military needed to focus on "decisive and overwhelming victory" without being burdened by the "tremendous medical costs and disruption" of having transgender personnel.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Mark Porter)

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