A federal judge tore into lawyers from the Justice Department on Wednesday, homing in on a retweet from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about disqualifying transgender troops from service “without an exemption.”
U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee who previously stated that the idea of only two sexes is not “biologically correct,” heard arguments about the Pentagon’s attempt to ban transgender individuals from serving in the military as trans rights groups seek a preliminary injunction to halt the policy entirely.
During the hearing, Reyes pointed to a post on X in which Hegseth quoted, “Pentagon says transgender troops are disqualified from service without an exemption.” The post in question linked to a Fox News Digital article about an internal Pentagon memo.
The memo, revealed in a court filing late last month, says U.S. service members who are transgender or otherwise exhibit gender dysphoria are prohibited from military service unless they obtain an exemption.
During her aggressive questioning of DOJ lawyers on Wednesday afternoon, Reyes said that one of the defendants in this case, Second Lieutenant Talbott, has “more commendations than books in our library,” and asked why she should side with Hegseth, who she said, at the time had only been in office for 30 days, rather than deferring to the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Reyes said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had determined there would not be a problem with troop cohesion because of transgender people in the military.
“You defer to Secretary Hegseth,” said DOJ lawyer Jason Manion.
Reyes fired back that the reason for Secretary Hegseth’s decision was informed by two studies which actually “undercut” his policy. “And we haven’t even gotten to the issue of animus yet.”
The judge then asked DOJ lawyers if they knew how much the military spends on Viagra annually. When they couldn’t answer, she told them the U.S. military spent $42 million on Viagra in 2024 and compared that to the $52 million spent on gender dysphoria treatment over 10 years.
Manion pointed out that they didn’t know how many people they were talking about for each side of the argument, and it could be that the treatment for gender dysphoria is much more expensive or just a matter of much fewer people receiving the treatment. Reyes agreed but maintained that it’s obvious the Defense Department spends much more on Viagra than gender dysphoria treatment.
When she questioned government lawyers that Hegseth’s repost of a tweet made it appear that all transgender troops would be disqualified from service, Manion argued that Hegseth was only using “shorthand” for the broader policy.
“Look at the words in the policy,” said Manion.
“No!” said Reyes. “Do you really think you can do that, say one thing in public and then come here to court and say something else entirely?”
Reyes then said that Manion had until Monday to deliver a declaration from Hegseth that he didn’t actually mean all transgender people.
“His words are that this covers all transgender people. I’m not going to speculate that he was just being sloppy,” Reyes said of Hegseth.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 27 that requires the Defense Department to update its guidance regarding “trans-identifying medical standards for military service” and to “rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness.”
Government lawyers have argued that Trump and Hegseth have broad authority to set policies for national defense.
As of December, around 4,240 active duty, guard, and reserve service members have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
