Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration To Implement Its Transgender Military Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump‘s administration to place a ban on transgender people in the military.

During his first presidential term in 2018, Trump proposed a ban on transgender individuals from joining the military.

In a 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court let the ban temporarily go into effect, restricting transgender people from serving in the military.

The ban impacted those diagnosed with gender dysphoria from serving, with rare exceptions.

In late January, the president signed executive orders that banned transgender people from serving in the military, as well as terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the service.

On May 6, the SCOTUS lifted a lower court injunction against the policy after a federal judge ruled it was an “unsupported, dramatic and facially unfair exclusionary policy.”

The court’s brief order was unsigned.

The court has a 6-3 conservative supermajority. The three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, publicly disagreed with this decision.

The court did not elaborate on its decision but only said that the order would expire if the justices eventually took up the case on the merits and delivered a ruling striking it down.

Litigation is proceeding in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit.

The Pentagon estimated that over 4,200 active service members have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

Advocacy groups have put the actual number of trans service members at almost 15,000.

The Supreme Court’s ruling means the military can start discharging service members who are transgender and stop enlisting them.

The Trump administration claimed that the president is owed broad deference in running the military and shaping the force, calling its policy a “medical” exclusion.

When Seattle-based Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Settle issued the preliminary injunction in the case on March 27, he wrote that the Trump administration’s policy on transgender soldiers would be a “de facto blanket prohibition,” which hopes to “eradicate transgender service.”

The case had been filed by a group of seven active-duty transgender service members and one transgender person who wants to enlist in the United States Marine Corps.

According to a statement, advocates for the seven members who brought the lawsuit labelled the ruling as a “devastating blow.”

“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,” Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which are offering legal representation for the transgender troops, stated.

“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.”