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Supreme Court allows military to start kicking trans people out
May 07 2025, 08:15

The Supreme Court said today that the Trump administration can implement the transgender military ban while the lawsuits against the policy proceed in a 6-3 decision with the Court’s Democratic appointees all dissenting.

At issue is Donald Trump’s January executive order banning transgender people from serving in the military, saying that they cannot lead “an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle” and that not using pronouns associated with a person’s sex assigned at birth violates the military’s “high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.”

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The executive order led to several lawsuits challenging it, including a lawsuit filed in Washington state brought by seven transgender servicemembers and one trans person who wants to join the military. A federal judge in that case issued a temporary injunction, blocking the Department of Defense from implementing the ban while the court heard the case.

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Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed the injunction, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to lift it. So, the DOJ appealed to the Supreme Court, which just lifted the injunction.

The DOJ told the Supreme Court that the transgender ban is not a ban on transgender people serving in the military, but is instead a ban on people with the medical condition gender dysphoria. Solicitor General John Sauer argued that “the separation of powers” requires the judicial branch to leave military staffing decisions to the executive branch.

Lawyers for the trans servicemembers argued that thousands of transgender people would be discharged while the court challenges are heard, a process that could take years. They said that the executive order plainly states that it’s based on animus towards trans people, just in the language it uses about trans people not being honorable. Moreover, they argued that transgender people have served in the military throughout the Biden administration without any issues, citing studies that military readiness isn’t affected by trans people serving openly.

HRC and Lambda Legal filed this lawsuit.

“The court’s denial today recognized that the government is not harmed when transgender servicemembers, who meet the same standards as their peers, are able to serve,” the organizations said in a joint statement after the lower court upheld the injunction. “To the contrary, the military is harmed when discriminatory policies exclude qualified people from service simply because of who they are.”

There are an estimated 8,000 to 15,000 trans service members who could be kicked out of the military due to this Supreme Court decision.

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