Dozens hold "Resist" signs near a Times Square military recruitment center to show their anger at Trump's decision to reinstate a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military on July 26, 2017, in New York.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images file</s>WASHINGTON — Five transgender people serving in the United States military sued President Trump and top Pentagon officials on Wednesday, asking that transgender troops be allowed to stay in the military.

The lawsuit was filed in response to Mr. Trump’s ban abruptly announced last month on Twitter.

The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit under pseudonyms — “Jane Doe” Nos. 1-5 — in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The case was organized by two rights groups, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD.

Other rights groups — like Lambda, Outserve and the American Civil Liberties Union — have also said they are preparing lawsuits but are holding off until the Trump administration takes a step to put the ban into effect, such as issuing formal guidance to the military or beginning the process of changing military rules.

But Shannon Minter, the legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said he believed the case was already ripe for a lawsuit because active transgender service members — such as those deciding whether to re-enlist — were already being harmed by the uncertainty created by Mr. Trump’s statements on Twitter.</s>In this Aug. 3, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. AP Photo

Two LGBT-rights organizations filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday challenging President Donald Trump's tweets declaring he wants a ban on transgender people serving in the military.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington on behalf of five transgender service members with nearly 60 years of combined military service.

Transgender people have been allowed to service openly in the military since June 2016. Trump, in a series of tweets on July 26, announced that he planned to end that policy.

The government "will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military," he tweeted, contending that their service entailed "tremendous medical costs and disruption."

The lawsuit, filed by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, says such a ban is unconstitutional, denying transgender service members equal protection and due process.

Dozens hold "Resist" signs near a Times Square military recruitment center to show their anger at Trump's decision to reinstate a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military on July 26, 2017, in New York. Spencer Platt / Getty Images file

Lawyers handling the lawsuit said they hoped the court would move swiftly to prevent a ban from taking effect, given the uncertainty that transgender service members now face in regard to their livelihoods and retirement benefits.

"The damage is happening now," said Jennifer Levi, Director of GLAD's Transgender Rights Project. "These service members were told in June 2016 they could come out and continue to openly serve."

The five plaintiffs — who were not identified in the lawsuit — serve in the Air Force, the Coast Guard and the Army. Their years of service range from three years to two decades, and include tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment.

Named in the suit, along with Trump, are Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other national security officials.

When Trump first tweeted his plan, Dunford said the military would not act on the tweets until a formal order to do so was issued by the president, who is also the commander-in-chief of the military. But a team of military lawyers has been pulled together to figure out how to handle the matter.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it told the White House on Tuesday that it intends to sue, and requested that relevant documents be preserved in preparation for the lawsuit.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would ban transgender people from the U.S. military, a move appealing to some in his conservative political base but creating uncertainty about the fate of thousands of transgender service members.

The surprise announcement by Trump, who as a presidential candidate last year vowed to fight for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, came in a series of morning Twitter posts. It drew condemnation from rights groups and some lawmakers in both parties as politically motivated discrimination but was praised by conservative activists and some Republicans.

The administration has not determined whether transgender individuals already serving in the military would be immediately thrown out, a point the White House and Pentagon have yet to decide, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

A transgender ban would reverse Democratic former President Barack Obama's policy and halts years of efforts to eliminate barriers to military service based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

"After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military," Trump tweeted, without naming any of the generals or experts.

"Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail," he said.

Sanders said Trump had "extensive discussions with his national security team," and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was informed after the president made the decision on Tuesday.

"This was about military readiness," Sanders told a briefing. "This was about unit cohesion. This was about resources within the military, and nothing more."

The Pentagon earlier referred questions about Trump's decision to the White House.

Critics said the health costs of caring for transgender service members were a tiny portion of the military's healthcare budget and Trump's policy change was based on prejudice.

His action unleashed a torrent of legal threats from civil liberties advocates seeking plaintiffs willing to challenge the ban in court and sparked a protest by hundreds who rallied outside an armed forces recruiting station in Manhattan's Times Square.

"We are in a crisis. This is a dark day for everyone," Brad Hoylman, New York's sole openly gay state senator, said as he addressed the crowd, which carried "Resist" signs amid chants of: "Hey-hey, ho-ho, Donald Trump has got to go."

A senior administration official said Trump had been determined to act for a while but the question was the timing, with advisers split on whether to conduct reviews before announcing the move.

The announcement at least temporarily changed the subject in Washington, where Trump's administration faces investigations into his presidential campaign's contacts with Russia and has struggled to win major legislative victories.

It was not the first time Trump has targeted transgender people since taking office in January. In February, he rescinded protections for transgender students put in place by Obama that had let them use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.

Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman John McCain - the most prominent military veteran in Congress, who was a Navy pilot and prisoner of war during the Vietnam War - called Trump's announcement unclear and inappropriate until a Pentagon study on the issue is completed and reviewed by Mattis, the military leadership and lawmakers.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council advocacy group, was among those praising Trump, saying, "Our troops shouldn't be forced to endure hours of transgender 'sensitivity' classes and politically correct distractions."

Under Obama, the Pentagon last year announced it was ending its ban on transgender people serving openly, calling the prohibition outdated.

The Defense Department had been expected to begin formally allowing transgender people to enlist this year. But Mattis on June 30 approved a six-month delay in that step.

Transgender service members already number about 2,500 active-duty personnel, with about 1,500 more in the military reserves, according to a RAND Corporation think tank study cited last year by Obama's defense secretary, Ash Carter.

"To choose service members on other grounds than military qualifications is social policy and has no place in our military," Carter said on Wednesday, noting the existing ranks of transgender individuals serving "capably and honorably."

Advocacy groups said Trump's policy was open to legal challenge under the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Joshua Block said Trump had rejected the "basic humanity" of transgender service members.

"There are no cost or military readiness drawbacks associated with allowing trans people to fight for their country," Block said. "The president is trying to score cheap political points on the backs of military personnel who have put their lives on the line for their country."

The House of Representatives' top Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, noted that a Pentagon-commissioned study determined the cost of providing medically necessary transition-related care involving transgender service members would amount to about one-100th of 1 percent of the military's healthcare budget.

The study put the cost at $2.4 million to $8.4 million a year of the more than $50 billion the Defense Department spends on healthcare.

"Once again, President Trump has shown his conduct is driven not by honor, decency, or national security, but by raw prejudice," Pelosi said.

"Transgender people are serving today knowing that their leader frankly doesn't trust them," she said. "The bottom line is that this does great harm to people who simply want to serve their country."

U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican whose son is transgender, said on Twitter: "No American, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, should be prohibited from honor + privilege of serving our nation."

Transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner defended "patriotic transgender Americans" in the military and asked Trump on Twitter, "What happened to your promise to fight for them?"

Canada's military also took to Twitter on Wednesday to say it welcomes citizens "of all sexual orientations and gender identities," adding the hashtag #DiversityIsOurStrength.

But Vicky Hartzler, a Republican congresswoman, praised Trump for changing Obama's "costly and damaging policy."

The U.S. military's ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces ended under Obama in 2011 after Congress passed legislation in 2010 reversing a law dubbed "don't ask, don't tell" that had forced the ouster of thousands of service members and others to hide their sexual orientation.

The Pentagon under Obama also opened all combat roles in the military to women.

The U.S. military at times has been in the vanguard of social progress. Trump's action came on the 69th anniversary of Democratic President Harry Truman racially integrating the armed forces, years before the 1950s and 1960s civil rights battles.</s>WASHINGTON: Five transgender women in the US military are suing President Donald Trump and the Pentagon over Trump's recent announcement he would reinstate a ban on transgender people serving in uniform.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court on Wednesday (Aug 9), the five plaintiffs from the Air Force, Coast Guard and the Army said they faced uncertainty about their futures, including whether they would be fired or lose post-military and retirement benefits.

In a series of three tweets last month, Trump upended an Obama-era policy of more than a year that allowed transgender troops to serve openly.

His announcement came with little or no coordination with the Pentagon and landed while Defence Secretary Jim Mattis was on vacation, leaving the astonished department scrambling to come up with a coherent response.

The lawsuit was filed against Trump, Mattis and various other senior military officials by the National Centre for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and GLAAD, a legal advocacy group.

All the unidentified "Jane Doe" plaintiffs were previously men who have transitioned to being female.

"Trump's directive to exclude transgender people from military service has created a tidal wave of harms that have already been felt throughout our armed services," NCLR legal director Shannon Minter said.

"Transgender service members have been blindsided by this shift and are scrambling to deal with what it means for their futures and their families."

The lawsuit asserts that reinstating the transgender ban is unconstitutional.

The number of transgender troops among America's 1.3 million active duty service members is small, with estimates ranging from between 1,320 and 15,000.

On Jun 30, 2016, then defence secretary Ash Carter said the military could no longer discharge or deny re-enlistment to troops based solely on their gender identity.

That means transgender troops who were encouraged to come out under one administration now face getting booted under another - a potential legal quagmire for the Pentagon.

In the two weeks since Trump's tweets, the White House has still not provided the Pentagon with clear directives on how it should implement a transgender ban, so the current policy remains in place for now.

A Pentagon spokesman said he could not comment on pending litigation.</s>Sisters Jackie and Juliet Evancho are disappointed by President Donald Trump’s recently announced sweeping ban against transgender people serving in the military, but say the controversial move has motivated them to “fight even harder.”

“Transgender people are people and we can fight just as hard as anyone else in the military and the expenses aren’t that bad,” Juliet, a transgender woman, tells PEOPLE Now.

The president announced his proposed ban on Twitter in late July, reversing an Obama Administration policy to allow transgender service members to serve openly.

“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” Trump wrote in one of his tweets about his decision.

Says Jackie, 17, of the move, “It was another one of those moments where I was like, ‘That’s a disappointment.’ No one really expected it, and I mean, I didn’t expect it definitely. It just gives me more reason to keep fighting.”

The America’s Got Talent finalist actually performed at the president’s inauguration, but has since pushed back at Trump in the months that have followed – including his signing of a February executive order rolling back protections for trans youth.

Meanwhile, Juliet says she wants Trump to be truthful about where he stands “on transgender people, honestly.”

“I mean, before when he was campaigning and everything, he was pro-LGBTQ and he was like, ‘I’m going to protect them,’ ” she tells PEOPLE Now. “And now, he’s pulling everything away from us and we have to fight even harder.”

RELATED VIDEO: Trans Activist Juliet Evancho Opens Up About Her Sex Reassignment Surgery

The Evancho sisters will appear in a new TLC special, Growing Up Evancho, on Wednesday night, which focuses on the Pittsburgh-based family and their daughters’ complicated rise to fame.

Growing Up Evancho airs Wednesday night at 10 p.m. EST on TLC.</s>Two LGBT organizations have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump over his recently announced decision to reinstate a ban on transgender individuals openly serving in the U.S. armed forces.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights and the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders filed the suit on Wednesday in district court on behalf of five transgender military personnel.

"Execution of the president's directive will result in an end to service by openly transgender service members and has already resulted in immediate, concrete injury to Plaintiffs by unsettling and destabilizing plaintiffs' reasonable expectation of continued service," the complaint claims.

"The directive to reinstate a ban on open service by transgender people violates both the Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution," the lawsuit states.

NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter said in a statement that Trump's ban "has created a tidal wave of harms that have already been felt throughout our armed services."

"Transgender service members have been blindsided by this shift and are scrambling to deal with what it means for their futures and their families," Minter argued.

Last year, former President Barack Obama began a policy to gradually allow for transgendered individuals to openly serve in the military and for taxpayers to pay for their gender reassignment surgeries and related medical treatments.

While transgender military personnel were allowed to serve openly with the new policy, Obama had delayed implementation of allowing transgender people to enlist until July 1, 2017.

Top generals requested a delay in that policy, which was approved by Secretary of Defense James Mattis on June 30. The new deadline was set for Jan. 1, 2018.

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Paul Selva told the Senate Armed Services Committee in July that the new measures could have "unintended consequences."

"Our decision to delay the accessions of transgender individuals into the services was largely based on a disagreement on the science of how mental healthcare and hormone therapy for transgender individuals would help solve their medical issues that are associated with gender dysphoria," Selva said.

In late July, Trump posted a series of statements on Twitter saying that he was reversing the Obama-era policy.

"After consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow ... transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military," Trump tweeted.

"[Our military] cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail."

In response, U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sent a message to military leadership clarifying that Trump's Twitter posts do not change their current policies.

"I know there are questions about yesterday's announcement on the transgender policy by the president," Dunford said, as reported by Politico.

"There will be no modifications to the current policy until the president's direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the secretary has issued implementation guidance."

Until official means are made to change the policy, Dunford added, "we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect."</s>Five transgender members of the U.S. military including Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans sued President Donald Trump on Wednesday, challenging his ban on transgender people serving in the armed forces.

Trump said on Twitter on July 26 that the U.S. government "will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity" in the military, a reversal of Pentagon policy that the lawsuit said was made without consulting senior military commanders.

The surprise announcement, citing healthcare costs and unit disruption, appealed to some in Trump's conservative political base but created uncertainty for thousands of transgender service members, many of whom came out after the Pentagon said in 2016 it would allow transgender people to serve openly.

Trump's tweets appeared to dismiss findings from a RAND Corporation study commissioned by the Pentagon that found allowing transgender people to serve would "cost little and have no significant impact on unit readiness."

The White House did not immediately respond to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

The service members suing the president are three U.S. Army soldiers, one U.S. Air Force airman and one member of the U.S. Coast Guard who are active duty.

All have come out as transgender to their commanding officers but are anonymous in the lawsuit, named only as Jane Doe, for fear of retribution, said Jennifer Levi, a lawyer from GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. The group filed the lawsuit along with the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it was preparing its own lawsuit.

The lawsuit said Trump's tweets violate the rights of the service members to due process and equal protection under the law. It asks the court to declare Trump's directive as unconstitutional and to issue injunctions to stop it.

The defendants are listed as Trump, Defense Secretary James Mattis and other military leaders including Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dunford said in a memo a day after Trump's tweets that there would be no change in policy until Mattis received an official order from the president.

That order has yet to be issued.

"In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect," Dunford said.

Lawyer Levi said the plaintiffs, some of whom are near retirement, need not wait for an official policy because the tweets alone created uncertainty about their futures.</s>Donald Trump says that transgender people will not be allowed to serve “in any capacity” in the US military, reversing moves towards inclusivity begun under Barack Obama.

“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” the president wrote on Twitter.

However, Trump’s statement contradicts a study commissioned by the Pentagon in 2016, which found that only a small fraction of service members are transgender, and allowing them to serve as openly transgender armed forces personnel would cost little and have no significant impact on military readiness.

According to the 2016 report by the RAND Corporation, the number of transgender personnel in active parts of the military is between 1320 and 6630, about 0.1 to 0.5 per cent of the total. The study estimated that only 29 to 129 people would seek any type of gender transition-related care in a given year.

Offering hormone therapy and surgery to any transgender personnel who wanted it would cost between $2.4 million and $8.4 million per year – around 0.1 per cent of healthcare spending for the active component of the military, the study estimated. The effect on staffing due to transition-related treatment would be a loss of less than 0.0015 per cent of total available labour-years, the study calculated.

“Evidence from foreign militaries and the US military has indicated no significant impact on unit cohesion or operational readiness as a result of allowing transgender and gay and lesbian personnel to serve openly or allowing women to serve in ground combat positions,” the report notes.

Last year, Ash Carter – then the US defence secretary – announced that transgender service members could serve openly without fear of retribution, overturning a ban that had been in place for all services. He ordered that the forces should start accepting new transgender recruits by July 2017, but the Pentagon recently delayed this policy shortly before the deadline.

Trump’s announcement did not say what would happen to transgender people already serving in the military.

There are as many as 250 service members in the process of transitioning or who have been approved to formally change gender within the Pentagon’s personnel system, according to several defence officials.

Since October 2016, transgender troops have been able to receive medical care and start formally changing their gender identifications in the Pentagon’s personnel system.

Read more: Science is catching up with society on transgender issues</s>WASHINGTON -- Five members of the U.S. armed forces filed a lawsuit Wednesday against President Donald Trump and top military brass, seeking to stop them from banning transgender people from serving "in any capacity."

With the lawsuit, which seeks to prevent the president from reversing a policy put in place by President Barack Obama's administration, a federal judge is once again being asked to referee a clash in the country's escalating culture war. Since Trump took office in January, the administration has engaged in legal battles over shifts in policy involving immigration and gay rights.

The service members, who are suing anonymously, are already members of the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard. They say they disclosed their gender orientation relying on the existing policy that permits them to serve openly.

The shift announced July 26 by Trump on Twitter violates the U.S. Constitution, the service members said in a complaint filed Wednesday in federal court in Washington. The change hasn't been implemented.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP: Timeline, appointments, executive orders + guide to actions in first 200 days]

"We do not comment on active or pending litigation," the White House press office said in an email. Defense Department spokesman Dana White said in a statement that the Pentagon is still awaiting formal guidance from the White House.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a named defendant in the case, previously acknowledged the uncertainty engendered by the president's announcement.

"I know there are questions about yesterday's announcement on the transgender policy by the president," Dunford said July 27. "There will be no modifications to the current policy until the president's direction has been received by the secretary of defense and the secretary has issued implementation guidance."

The lead plaintiff, who identifies herself as Jane Doe 1, has submitted a prospective letter of resignation to the Coast Guard, stating she'd rather walk away voluntarily than be terminated because of her gender, according to the complaint. Doe 1 said she would withdraw the resignation if the administration abandoned its plan.

Three other Jane Doe plaintiffs serve in the U.S. Army, including Doe 3, who has already served in Afghanistan and "expects to be deployed to Iraq soon," according to the filing. The fifth plaintiff is a 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran who has served two tours of duty in Iraq.

"Jane Doe 5's livelihood depends on her military service. Separation from the military would have devastating financial and emotional consequences for her," according to the complaint.

Trump's contemplated reversal would violate the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection and has no rational basis, the plaintiffs allege. It would also deprive them of their military careers without due process, according to the lawsuit.

Treatment of transgender people has become a flash point as social conservatives in some states push to require students and sometimes adults to use school and public restrooms corresponding to their gender at birth.

In three tweets last month, Trump outlined his reasoning for reversing the Obama policy on transgender individuals in the military.

"After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on the decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you," he said in his tweets.

The Military Times pointed out that the cost of providing Viagra to members of the armed forces is at least 10 times the costs associated with gender reassignment.

The service members' lawsuit was filed by attorneys from the Washington-based WilmerHale law firm, Boston-based Foley Hoag LLP and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Also named as defendants are Secretary of Defense James Mattis, acting Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy and Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson.

"Besides the harm to the service members and people who want to enlist, what's most upsetting about this is for the transgender kids out there in society, for their president to say that they are inherently a disruption, that they shouldn't be able to serve," said Jon Davidson, a director of the advocacy group Lambda Legal, which isn't involved in the service members' lawsuit. "That's a terrible message to be sending to young people."

Information for this article was contributed by Erik Larson of Bloomberg News.
Five transgender United States military personnel sue President Donald Trump and top Pentagon officials over the President's policy change announced late last month banning transgender people from serving in the military. The suit asks the court to prevent the ban from going into effect.