A federal court has removed the last hurdle to military service for HIV-infected people who have no symptoms and whose viral load is undetectable.

“The defendant’s policy prohibiting asymptomatic HIV-positive individuals with undetectable viral loads from entering the military is irrational, arbitrary, and capricious,” wrote U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia in her opinion issued Tuesday in the case. Wilkins vs. Austin. “Worse still, they contribute to the ongoing stigmatization of HIV-positive people while actively hindering the military’s recruitment goals.”

In two other cases Harrison vs Austin And Roe & Voe v. Austin, Courts had ruled that military policies preventing the draft and retention of these soldiers violated the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law. Until Brinkema’s decision, there had been no ruling on whether the ban on these people serving in the military also violated the Constitution and the APA.

The Harrison And roe The rulings came before the Biden administration’s July 2022 announcement that it would no longer defend restrictions that prevented HIV-infected soldiers from being commissioned and appointed as officers. In response to those rulings, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did not appeal, but instead ordered all branches of the military to change their regulations to allow those soldiers to be appointed and retained in service. His order, however, did not change the hurdles to enlistment.

The Department of Defense claimed that service members with HIV posed a medical risk, but Brinkema noted that antiretroviral treatment, which reduces a person’s viral load to undetectable levels, makes the risk of transmission low to nonexistent. The department did not provide any evidence other than that presented in the Harrison And roe cases, she wrote.

The Wilkins The case was filed in November 2022 by Isaiah Wilkins, a black gay man who wants to join the U.S. Army; Carol Coe, a transgender Latina lesbian who goes by a pseudonym and wants to re-enlist after her discharge; and Natalie Noe, also known by a pseudonym, a straight woman who wants to enlist. All are HIV-positive, asymptomatic and undetectable. Minority Veterans of America is also a plaintiff in the case. They are represented by Lambda Legal, Peter Perkowski, legal policy director at Minority Veterans of America, attorney Scott A. Schoettes and attorneys from the firm Winston & Strawn.

“We are pleased that the Court has struck down the last discriminatory rule that barred people living with HIV from enlisting or appointing to the military,” said Gregory Nevins, senior attorney and director of the Employment Fairness Project at Lambda Legal, in a press release. “Americans living with HIV no longer face categorical barriers to pursuing a career in the military – discharge, prohibition from commissioning, prohibition from deploying, and ultimately prohibition from enlisting.”

“This is a victory not only for me, but for other people living with HIV who want to serve,” Wilkins said in the press release. “As I said, giving up my dream of serving my country was never an option. I am eager to enlist in the Army without being subjected to crippling policies of discrimination.”