Supreme Court Lets Trump Ban Transgender People From Military

President Donald Trump can proceed with his plan to ban transgender people from the military, including by removing transgender troops currently serving, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The brief one-page order — delivered over the dissent of the three liberal justices — lifted a lower-court judge’s ruling that had paused the administration’s ban, concluding it was likely unconstitutional and based on distortions of limited research on the subject. The Trump administration had argued that the courts are required to nearly always defer to the military’s determinations about readiness, lethality and unit cohesion.

Neither the majority nor the dissenters provided any reasoning for their positions.

The order, which followed an emergency appeal from the Trump administration, is not a final ruling on the issue, but will remain in place as litigation proceeds.

Two federal district judges had previously blocked the administration’s ban, finding the move was so unsupported that it could not be sustained even when showing great deference to military leaders. The judges also ruled that the military had to resume medical care for transgender service members.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee in Washington, D.C., blocked the ban on March 18, only to have her ruling paused by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. But a second decision on March 28 by U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle, a George W. Bush appointee based in Tacoma, Washington, was allowed to stand by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In an urgent appeal to the high court last month, Solicitor General John Sauer argued that federal judges were overstepping their bounds by intruding on the president’s authority to supervise the armed forces.

“The Constitution does not authorize courts to second-guess the approach to gender transition adopted by the 2025 policy,” Sauer added.

In 2019, the Supreme Court split 5-4 as it ruled that the first Trump administration could proceed with a narrower ban that sought to exclude transgender people who had undergone gender transition and those unwilling to serve “in their biological sex” from the military.

Biden reversed that ban and allowed most transgender people to serve openly in the military. But shortly after returning to office, Trump revoked Biden’s policy and issued an executive order reinstating an even stricter ban.