WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Trump administration would allow a policy that would prohibit transgender people from serving the military.
The High Court agreed to suspend a lower court order that prevented the administration from implementing the ban nationwide. The Justice Department sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court after the federal Court of Appeal left its district court injunction. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson have said they will deny the administration’s demands.
White House spokesman Caroline Leavitt cheered the Supreme Court order as a “massive victory,” and in a social media post Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegses are “restoring an army that focuses on preparation and lethality rather than day or awakened gender ideology.”
However, the Lambda Legal and The Human Rights campaign represents service members challenging the ban, reiterating their belief that the policy would violate the constitution and would ultimately be invalidated.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a devastating blow to trans service members who demonstrated our country’s capabilities and commitment to defence,” the group said in a statement. “By ensuring this discriminatory ban can be enforced while the challenge continues, the court has temporarily approved policies that are not related to military preparation and bias. Transgender individuals meet the same standards and show the same value as everyone.”
The policy arises from Presidential Order In January, Trump signed targeting active and future service members with gender discomfort. The measure said the military’s “high standards of military preparation, lethality, unity, integrity, humility, uniformity and integrity” are inconsistent with “constraints on the medical, surgical and mental health of individuals with gender discomfort.”
Trump’s orders state that “even in the individual’s personal life, adoption of gender identity that contradicts individual sexual conflict with soldiers’ commitment to an honorable, true, disciplined lifestyle. His requirement that the man’s claim that he is a woman, and that other people respect this falsehood is inconsistent with the humility and selflessness of service members.
SpartaPride, a nonprofit that represents transgender service members, veterans and their advocates, challenged its characterization, saying, “Transgender Americans have publicly honored the US military for nearly a decade. Thousands of transgender forces are now serving and are fully qualified for the position they serve.”
The president banned transgender people from serving the military during his first term, and the Supreme Court allowed it to come into effect in 2019.
Following Trump’s new executive order, Heggs Overseen the pentagon Suspends new access for people with a history of gender discomfort and stops medical procedures that maintain gender. The Department of Defense then issued a new policy in February Disqualified Unless they win a waiver, there is a sense of gender discomfort from military service. The branch had to begin identifying and segregating transgender service members by March 26th.
According to the Department of Defense, there are over 1.2 million active members of the military. According to the Congressional Research Service, between January 2016 and May 2021, approximately 1,892 service members received gender-affirming care from the Pentagon.
The defense attorney said there were about 4,200 units diagnosed with gender discomfort as of December 9th. According to a Pentagon memo, between 2015 and 2024, the Pentagon spent about $52 million on medical care to treat gender discomfort.
The Trump administration’s ban led to legal challenges raised in Washington, DC and Tacoma, Washington. The previous Supreme Court lawsuit stems from a lawsuit that brought Tacoma on behalf of one transgender person who wanted to join the military and seven transgender service members who joined the advocacy group. The plaintiffs alleged that the policy was unconstitutional and discriminated against based on gender and transgender status.
A U.S. District judge agreed to block the ban from implementing it in March and called for the Trump administration to revive the policies Biden introduced. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit subsequently refused to grant emergency relief to the Trump administration’s emergency relief, allowing the administration to enforce the ban while the lawsuit is underway.
The Department of Justice was debating in the Supreme Court. Submit Trump’s policy is not based on transgender status and gender, but rather to elicit classifications by medical condition, gender discomfort. Attorney General John Saurer wrote that the political division has the authority to determine the composition of the military.
“(i)f The separation of power makes sense. When an unelected judge takes away the role of the political sector in the operation of the country’s military, the government clearly does irreparable harm,” wrote Sauer.
He argued that the district court injunction forced the military to maintain policies issued under the Biden administration. The Pentagon turned out to be inconsistent with national security interests.
But lawyers for members of transgender services said that by allowing the Trump administration to enforce the ban, the government will overturn the status quo to clarify how thousands of transgender service members are discharged, end their careers, and shout out military forces.
“The records are clear and certain. Equal services by openly trans service members improve our military preparation, lethality, unit cohesion and elimination of trans service members from our military will harm all three and public FISC.”
Transgender members of the military say the ban is igniting animus on transgender people, and the Supreme Court allowed early iterations to take effect during the first Trump administration, but the policy is much broader as it forces the expulsion of all transgender service members.
“The ban was issued for the openly discriminatory purpose of expressing the government’s disapproval of trans people – even in their personal lives, they make them unequal to others,” they wrote.
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