Transgender troops just won a major ruling in their fight against Trump’s military ban

A federal judge on Tuesday certified a class of transgender service members and prospective troops challenging the Trump administration’s ban on military service, expanding one of the country’s most consequential transgender rights cases beyond the individual plaintiffs and setting it on a path toward trial next year.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes granted the motion in Talbott v. Trump after a tense hearing in Washington, D.C., according to an attorney on the case who spoke with The Advocate over text message. The court’s public audio feed did not return after Reyes recessed the hearing, leaving members of the public unable to hear the ruling in real time.

The decision means the case can proceed on behalf of a broader group of transgender people affected by the administration’s policy, which bars many transgender people from serving in or joining the armed forces. The precise class definition was not immediately available Tuesday afternoon.

Related: Lawyers ask judge to certify case to protect all trans troops affected by Trump military ban

“This is an incredibly significant case for our country, for the military, and for the thousands of transgender individuals who have dedicated their lives to military service,” Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ+ Rights and lead co-counsel for the plaintiffs, told The Advocate after the hearing. “The Court’s decision today to certify a class is an important step and will help to ensure that any positive decision will benefit all transgender troops, not just the individual plaintiffs in this case. We look forward to an opportunity to prove our case.”

Minter said that Reyes scheduled a trial for January 4.

The ruling gives the plaintiffs a major procedural victory in a case that has become a defining test of how far the Trump administration can go in pushing transgender people out of public life. For the service members at the center of the case, it is the difference between continuing careers built over years, often decades, and being told by their own government that their service is no longer welcome.

Before a break, Reyes had signaled that she was inclined to certify some form of class, though likely a narrower one than the plaintiffs originally proposed.

“I don’t think we have a numerosity issue,” Reyes told Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Layendecker during the public portion of the hearing. “I don’t think we have a typicality issue. Everyone’s going to be affected by this executive order the same way, which is they’re going to be kicked out of the military, or they’re not going to be allowed to accede to the military.”

But Reyes also made clear that she was not prepared to bless the plaintiffs’ proposed class definition as written. She said it appeared too broad, particularly where it included transgender people who merely “wish” to join the military. She pressed both sides on whether the class should instead be tied more closely to the Trump administration’s own policy language, including people with a current diagnosis or history of symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria.

Related: Trans troops ask judge to protect everyone targeted by Pete Hegseth's military ban

“I’m not going to certify a class of everyone who ‘wishes’ to accede,” Reyes said. “That would just be impossible to assess.”

The hearing came the same day the U.S. Supreme Court issued a major ruling in cases involving transgender students and school sports. Reyes opened the hearing by saying she had not yet read the decision but wanted both sides to file simultaneous briefs of no more than 10 pages on whether the ruling affects her preliminary injunction in the military case.

Reyes previously blocked parts of the administration’s ban, finding that the government’s justifications appeared to be rooted in animus rather than military need. The Trump administration has continued defending the policy in court.

The judge also spent significant time Tuesday on a related case, Shilling v. United States, pending in the Western District of Washington. Lawyers in that case had asked Reyes to amend the proposed class definition in Talbott to avoid overlap with the Shilling plaintiffs, including members of Gender Justice League, an associational plaintiff in the Washington case.

Reyes appeared open to excluding the individual Shilling plaintiffs from the Talbott class but was skeptical of carving out every Gender Justice League member, which lawyers said could number more than 1,000.

“That just seems like an incredibly broad carve-out,” Reyes said. “If you represent the organization, you don’t represent the individuals.”

Related: Judge hints at federal class action, orders DOJ evidence in trans military ban case

The Justice Department argued that a nationwide class could interfere with the Washington litigation. Reyes pushed back, saying overlapping litigation does not automatically defeat class certification.

“It can’t be that if you have more than one litigation in the country, that automatically means you can’t have a class action,” Reyes said. “That’s just inconsistent with everything I know about litigation and class actions.”

The hearing also turned unusually sharp when Reyes questioned plaintiffs’ attorneys about what she described as months-long delays in moving the case toward final resolution. The judge said the case should already be approaching a permanent injunction hearing and questioned whether plaintiffs’ counsel had the resources to represent what she described as potentially “over 10 to 15,000” class members.

“We should be well into a permanent injunction,” Reyes said. “Class certification should be well behind us. We should be closing on discovery, and we should be moving forward with a permanent injunction.”

She added, “You have wasted on behalf of your clients about a year of litigation time.”

Joseph Wardenski, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, told Reyes that the legal team believed the case could now move quickly toward summary judgment. Jennifer Levi of GLAD Law said the plaintiffs had made a strategic decision to wait for appellate guidance before moving forward with discovery, an explanation Reyes rejected.

“The discovery was going to be discovery with respect to why they made this decision and whether or not it was motivated by anti-trans bias,” Reyes said. “Not rocket science.”

Reyes also questioned the named plaintiff, Nicolas Talbott, about whether he understood the responsibilities of serving as a class representative. Talbott, a U.S. Army Reserve second lieutenant, told the court that he trusted the legal team and understood that, as a class representative, he had a responsibility not only to himself but also to others affected by the policy.

The hearing began with Reyes admonishing plaintiffs’ attorneys over a quote that appeared in a March 16 Advocate story after an earlier hearing in the case. In that article, Minter said Reyes had “indicated initial support for potentially certifying a class of transgender service members.” Reyes said Tuesday that she had made no such indication and warned lawyers not to quote her out of context.

“I would not support any motion without having any briefing in front of me whatsoever,” Reyes said.