The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to begin enforcing a ban on transgender troops serving openly in the military.
The decision undermines two lower court decisions and hands a victory to an administration that has broadly sought to restrict transgender rights.
The Justice Department asked the justices in an emergency application last month to lift a Seattle-area federal judge’s nationwide injunction blocking the policy, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put forward following an executive order Trump issued days into his second term.
The justices paused the injunction until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rules on the Trump administration’s appeal and the high court has the chance to consider whether to hear the case.
The court’s three liberal justices publicly dissented.
The Trump administration’s policy states that transgender individuals cannot meet the “rigorous standards” needed to serve, and allowing their participation threatens military readiness and unit cohesion, an argument long used to keep marginalized groups, including Black and gay people and women, from serving in the military. A 2016 RAND Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon found that allowing trans people to serve had no negative impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness or readiness.
In a joint statement, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, groups representing the transgender service members challenging Trump’s ban, called Tuesday’s ruling “a devastating blow” to trans troops “who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation’s defense.”
“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,” the groups said.
