Within 15 hours of Trump's executive order, transgender troops and advocates filed a lawsuit alleging that the new restrictions are violating constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

Trump’s order to push out transgender troops, issued late Monday night, was instantly condemned by an array of activist groups as exceptionally egregious and ultimately harmful to military readiness. They say transgender people have been serving successfully for years, including openly on and off for the past decade.

President Donald Trump will ban transgender people from enlisting or serving openly in the military, and has directed federal agencies to purge "gender ideology."