A divided Supreme Court will allow Donald Trump’s administration to continue banning transgender service members while legal challenges against the policy continue.
An order from the nation’s highest court on Tuesday freezes a lower court’s injunction that blocked the administration from removing trans service members across all branches of the U.S. military.
All three liberals on the court dissent.
The ruling is a “devastating blow to transgender servicemembers who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation’s defense,” according to a statement from Lambda Legal and Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which sued to block the policy on behalf of a group of trans service members.
“By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the Court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice,” the groups added. “Transgender individuals meet the same standards and demonstrate the same values as all who serve. We remain steadfast in our belief that this ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down.”
The president’s January directive claims the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Pentagon leadership subsequently ordered military officials to identify all trans troops, which “must be completed” no later than June 25, according to a Pentagon memo. The order also immediately bans access to gender-affirming care for all trans service members.
Pentagon guidance claims that “the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.”
In March, George W. Bush-appointed District Judge Benjamin Settle said the policy “plainly” discriminates and is not backed by any evidence to support the claims behind it.
“The government provided no evidence supporting the conclusion that military readiness, unit cohesion, lethality, or any of the other touchstone phrases long used to exclude various groups from service have in fact been adversely impacted by open transgender service,” he wrote. “The Court can only find that there is none.”
Settle’s decision marked the second nationwide injunction targeting the policy following lawsuits from actively serving trans service members and LGBT+ civil rights groups.
During a federal court hearing in February, Washington, D.C. District Judge Ana Reyes condemned the president’s “demeaning,” “biologically inaccurate” and “frankly ridiculous” language in an executive order that revoked federal recognition of trans, nonbinary and intersex people — an order that has formed the basis for a flood of other actions from the administration targeting trans Americans.
Judge Reyes suggested that, taken together, Trump’s executive orders against trans people “scream animus,” or are motivated by prejudice.
Her injunction — which followed a lawsuit from more than 20 trans service members — is intended to “maintain the status quo of military policy regarding transgender service that existed immediately before” Trump issued his executive order, Reyes wrote.
Judge Reyes argues that a categorical ban on trans service members in the nation’s military discriminates based on transgender status and sex — and because “it is soaked in animus.”
During an appeals court hearing last month, judges did not appear convinced by the government’s arguments that the Pentagon’s policy doesn’t ban trans service members per se but gender dysphoria diagnosis and healthcare.
Earlier this month, trans service members suing to overturn ban argued that they “have served in our military for years with honor and distinction,” they told the Supreme Court.
The Trump administration doesn’t have any evidence “that such service has negatively impacted military readiness or unit cohesion, nor can they identify any harm that would occur during the short time the preliminary injunction is in effect while their appeal is resolved,” they added.
In a separate filing, a group of trans service members in a parallel case wrote to the court to warn that blocking those lower court orders would “immediately trigger” a harsh process of removal for “thousands of transgender service members, causing reputational, professional, and constitutional harm that can never be undone.”
“Once initiated, the shame and opprobrium of being forced into that process (even if later reversed) causes irreparable harm,” they wrote.
Shannon Minter, legal director with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represents plaintiffs in the first of lawsuits aimed at stopping Trump’s policy, said the Supreme Court’s decision “has upended the lives of thousands of servicemembers without even the decency of explaining why.”
“As a result of this decision, reached without benefit of full briefing or argument, brave troops who have dedicated their lives to the service of our country will be targeted and forced into harsh administrative separation process usually reserved for misconduct,” Minter said in a statement. “They have proven themselves time and time again and met the same standards as every other soldier, deploying in critical positions around the globe. This is a deeply sad day for our country.”
