Supreme Court Upholds Trump’s Trans Military Ban

The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military service to move forward on Tuesday.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, asserting they would have allowed the pause to stay in place.

The high court struck down a nationwide injunction from a district judge, but it will likely revisit the case of Shilling v. United States. The high court didn’t yet rule on the merits of the policy.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January stating transgender service allowed under the Biden administration is harmful to military readiness and stated it “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”

In response to Trump’s executive order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the services 30 days to determine how to identify transgender service members and remove them.

Previously, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma, Washington, sided with seven transgender military members who sued. The plaintiffs claimed the ban is discriminatory, and would cause lasting damage to their careers. Settle issued a nationwide injunction. Settle was appointed to the bench in 2007 by President George W. Bush.

The district judge characterized the policy as a “blanket prohibition on transgender service,” and ruled that the plaintiffs would likely win the case based on equal protection, the First Amendment, and procedural due process.

The Justice Department filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court to lift the Washington state judge’s nationwide injunction. 

The Supreme Court ruling stops the injunction, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will still rule on the policy.

The lead plaintiff is Navy Cmdr. Emily Shilling, who has almost 20 years of service and reportedly flew 60 missions in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

In a more narrow case in March, a federal judge in New Jersey stopped the Air Force from removing two transgender members.

The policy has been a game of pingpong based on what party controls the White House.

In the last full year of the Barack Obama administration, the Defense Department issued a policy permitting transgender people to serve openly in the military. The Trump Defense Department reversed the Obama policy, and the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s ban in a 2019 case. The Joe Biden administration then restored the Obama policy.

This is a breaking news story and it will be updated.