The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to institute its ban on transgenders serving in the military.
In an order that all three liberal justices opposed, the high court approved an emergency petition from the Trump administration to nix a lower court injunction that blocked the ban from taking effect.
President Trump had signed an executive order Jan. 27 discharging service members who identify as transgender, a policy that was similar to one he implemented in his first administration that the Supreme Court upheld in 2019.
A U.S. Flag flutters outside of the United States Supreme Court Building, in Washington, U.S., December 5, 2024. REUTERSFormer President Joe Biden later scrapped the transgender ban that the first Trump administration had put in place.
Seven transgender military service members and one aspiring service member sued the Trump administration over the latest ban and were backed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights as well as GLAD Law.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs argue that the ban is a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee, saying that the 2018-era Trump policy “lacked the animus-laden language” of the Jan. 27 ban.
In March, Seattle US District Judge Benjamin Settle issued a preliminary injunction blocking the ban from taking effect, ripping it as “unsupported, dramatic and facially unfair.”
A panel on the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit allowed that injunction to remain in effect, meaning the Supreme Court was the Trump administration’s last recourse.
“This case does not plow new ground. In 2018, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis adopted a policy, materially indistinguishable from the one at issue here, that generally disqualified individuals with gender dysphoria from military service,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in a petition filed with the court last month.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday permitted Donald Trump’s administration to implement his ban on transgender personnel in the military. Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/ShutterstockTrump’s order called for a crackdown on “gender radicalism in the military” and argued that “a man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promptly followed through with a policy memo in February that argued “efforts to split our troops along the lines of identity weaken our Force and make us vulnerable.”
Hegseth’s memo also called on the Pentagon to stop providing gender-affirming medical care for transgender members of the US military.
U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as he signs executive orders and proclamations in the Oval Office at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 5, 2025. REUTERSData is limited on how many transgender service members are currently serving in the military, but it is believed to be under 1% of total active-duty service members.
A 2016 Pentagon study found that there were 8,980 active duty and 5,727 reserve troops who identified as transgender, per a 2018 report by the Palm Center, a California-based think tank.
The Supreme Court is currently weighing a major transgender case regarding Tennessee’s restrictions on so-called gender affirming care for minors. The case is widely seen as one of the most prominent issues on the high court’s docket this term.
