Washington, D.C. — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has publicly mocked U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes on social media after she issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at banning transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military.
Hegseth, a former Army officer who assumed his role in January following Trump’s inauguration, took to X on Saturday to deride Reyes, sarcastically dubbing her a “top military planner” and “Commander” who should take on the task of training elite military units.
The controversy stems from a ruling Reyes delivered on Wednesday, March 19, when she granted a preliminary injunction halting the enforcement of Trump’s executive order.
Signed on January 27—Trump’s first day back in office—the order directed the Department of Defense to revise its policies, asserting that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”
In response, Hegseth issued a Pentagon memo on February 26 that presumptively disqualified individuals with gender dysphoria from service, prompting immediate legal challenges.
The lawsuit challenging the order, Talbott v. Trump, was filed by Army Reserves Second Lieutenant Nicolas Talbott and seven other plaintiffs, with additional individuals later joining the case.
Represented by advocacy groups including the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLAD, the plaintiffs argued that the ban violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment by discriminating against service members based on their sex and transgender status. In her 79-page decision, Judge Reyes, a Biden appointee, found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in proving the policy unconstitutional, describing it as “soaked in animus and dripping with pretext.”
She wrote, “Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”
Hegseth’s response came swiftly and sarcastically.
In his X post, he wrote, “Since ‘Judge’ Reyes is now a top military planner, she/they can report to Fort Benning at 0600 to instruct our Army Rangers on how to execute High Value Target Raids…after that, Commander Reyes can dispatch to Fort Bragg to train our Green Berets on counterinsurgency warfare.” The post, which has since garnered significant attention online, reflects a broader pattern of Trump administration officials criticizing federal judges who rule against their policies.
Reyes’ ruling, which she delayed until Friday to allow the administration time to appeal, has reignited debate over transgender rights in the military. The judge emphasized the contributions of transgender service members, noting, “The cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed—some risking their lives—to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the military ban seeks to deny them.” According to Pentagon estimates, approximately 4,200 active-duty service members—about 0.2% of the total force—identify as transgender.
The administration has vowed to fight the injunction.
“We are appealing this decision, and we will win,” Hegseth declared in an earlier X post on March 19, a stance echoed by a Justice Department spokesperson who called Reyes’ ruling “the latest example of an activist judge attempting to seize power at the expense of the American people who overwhelmingly voted to elect President Trump.” The Pentagon has confirmed it will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, setting the stage for a protracted legal battle.