WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday left in place her nationwide order blocking last year’s Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops while she awaits fresh legal briefings on the impact of a policy shift announced Friday.
On Friday, the president revoked the full ban he initially backed last summer for a new policy that would still disqualify many transgender troops who have had gender reassignment surgery.
As the White House unveiled its new order Friday night, Justice Department lawyers filed papers asking four federal courts to lift preliminary injunctions those courts issued late last year over the previous iteration of the ban.
The legal maneuvers are similar to the flurry of federal court activity as the White House imposed and then altered entry ban orders as it navigated court decisions.
The injunctions that froze the Trump administration’s initial ban on transgender troops came in lawsuits brought by some troops, would-be recruits, human rights groups, and several states against a change that would undo an Obama-era policy from 2016 allowing transgender individuals to enlist and serve openly.
In those lawsuits, judges in Washington, Baltimore, Seattle, and Riverside, Calif., had said the Trump ban of last year probably was discriminatory and required the military to allow transgender recruits to enlist and continue to serve openly effective Jan. 1.
The four courts had said the parties bringing the lawsuits were likely to win their arguments that the initial ban was unlawful.
In Washington on Wednesday, US District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly declined to lift two orders she issued late last year temporarily halting the ban. Instead, she gave GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders and the National Center for Lesbian Rights — who have sued on behalf of six active-duty transgender service members — until April 6 to amend their lawsuit in light of the new executive order.
The judge then gave the Justice Department until April 20 to say how it intends to proceed.
Justice Department senior trial counsel Ryan Parker and trial attorney Andrew Carmichael had told the court the block to the ban in essence was moot in light of the changes Friday. They asked Kollar-Kotelly to dissolve her injunction, saying the basis for it ‘‘no longer exist’’ and that a streamlined ban, like that issued Friday, was necessary to counter the risk to ‘‘military readiness.’’
Kollar-Kotelly’s move to maintain the injunction, for now, tracked with action Monday by US District Judge Marsha Pechman of Washington state. Pechman gave all sides one week to update their filings in a similar case.
‘‘President Trump’s last-minute maneuvering does nothing to save his unlawful and discriminatory policy,’’ Washington Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement.
‘‘Nothing the federal government has said or done up to this point, including Friday’s developments, changes anything about the unlawful and discriminatory nature of President Trump’s ban,’’ Ferguson said.
Injunctions on the initial ban issued by federal judges Marvin Garbis of Baltimore and Jesus Bernal of Riverside also remain in place.
In a 44-page memo to the president made public Friday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis recommended disqualifying US troops who have had gender reassignment surgery.
