Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
On 30 September 2011, Justice Johnson Lam of the Court of First Instance of the High Court (CFI) ruled in Vallejos' case that existing legislation restricting FDHs from qualifying for permanent residence contravened the Hong Kong Basic Law. Lam also found that Vallejos and Domingo, but not the three other applicants, had fulfilled the condition of taking Hong Kong as their only permanent home and being ordinarily resident in Hong Kong for seven years. The Court of Appeal of the High Court overturned the CFI's decision on Vallejos' case on 28 March 2012. Vallejos and Domingo then jointly appealed to the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), which heard their case on 26–28 February 2013; the CFA rejected their appeal on 25 March 2013.
Doe v. Trump (2017)
On November 21, 2017, the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) appealed the preliminary injunction in the case of "Jane Doe v. Trump". One day later, on November 22, USDOJ filed a motion seeking to clarify whether Secretary Mattis had independent authority to modify the original directive issued by Secretary Carter in 2016. The original Directive-type Memorandum (DTM) 16-005 permitted accession (entry to military service through enlistment or enrollment in a Service Academy, ROTC, or other similar program) of transgender individuals starting on July 1, 2017, and Secretary Mattis had modified DTM 16-005 just before accession was set to start by imposing a six-month delay to allow for a study of the effects on force "readiness and lethality". In their motion opposing the clarification, Plaintiffs claimed the Defendants were seeking a "substantive change to the Court's injunction" and the Court subsequently issued another order on November 27, 2017. In the order, Judge Kollar-Kotelly clarified the Order of October 30 effectively reverted the policy back to the "status quo" that existed prior to the Presidential Memorandum of August 25, meaning that accession of transgender individuals will proceed as scheduled starting January 1, 2018, per Secretary Mattis's modification issued June 30, 2017 to DTM 16-005.