transgender, or who have taken steps to externalize the condition, must be forwarded to the assistant secretary of the Navy (manpower and reserve affairs) for decision." Still later in 2015, Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the creation of a Pentagon working group "to study over the next six months the policy and readiness implications of welcoming transgender persons to serve openly." He also stated that all decisions to dismiss troops with gender dysphoria would be handled by the Pentagon's acting under Secretary of Defense for personnel and readiness (Brad Carson). On June 30, 2016, Ash Carter announced that the ban on transgender people from openly serving in the US military had been lifted and that the United States Department of Defense was undergoing a twelve-month transition period to satisfy the needs of transgender soldiers. Just over a year later, in July 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted that transgender personnel would again be barred from the military, and he published a memo on August 25, 2017, directing that an implementation plan for a transgender ban be submitted to him by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security by February 2018. On August 9, 2017, five transgender United States military personnel sued Trump and top Pentagon officials over the proposed banning of transgender people from serving in the military. The suit asks the court to prevent the ban from going into effect. Two major LGBT-rights organizations filed a petition in the United States District Court in Washington on behalf of the five transgender personnel. On August 28, 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maryland filed a federal lawsuit, Stone v. Trump, on behalf of several transgender military service members, alleging that the ban violated their equal protection rights. The same date, Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit in Seattle on behalf of three trans people, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Gender Justice League, alleging that the ban violated equal protection, due process and free speech protections. On September 5, 2017, Equality California filed a lawsuit in United States District Court for the Central District of California against the ban; the lawsuit includes four named and three unnamed transgender plaintiffs. On August 29, 2017, Secretary Mattis announced that currently serving transgender troops would be allowed to remain in the armed services, pending further study. Mattis stated he would set up a panel of experts from the Departments