Trump asks Supreme Court to let him enforce transgender military ban for now

Washington — President Trump on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to allow his administration’s policy prohibiting transgender people from serving in the military to take effect while legal challenges to the ban move forward.

The request for the Supreme Court’s intervention comes after a federal appeals left in place a lower court order that prevents the Trump administration from enforcing the ban nationwide. The administration has attacked these broad orders, known as nationwide or universal injunctions, issued by federal district court judges as improperly setting policy for the country.

Mr. Trump banned transgender people from serving in the military during his first term in office, which the Supreme Court in 2019 allowed to take effect, but the policy was rescinded by former President Joe Biden. When Mr. Trump returned to office in January for his second term, he issued a new executive order that declared it to be U.S. government policy to “establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,” and said that policy is “inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria.”

The president’s directive said that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

On the heels of the president’s order, the Defense Department issued a new policy in February that generally disqualifies from military service people with gender dysphoria or who have undergone medical interventions for gender dysphoria. The plan from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth required all military branches to start identifying transgender service members and begin the process of separating them from service on March 26 unless they obtained a waiver. 

Roughly 1,892 active-duty members of the military received gender-affirming care from the Defense Department between January 2016 and May 2021, according to a January report from the Congressional Research Service. The Justice Department has said that the Pentagon does not have data on service members by gender identity, but a defense official said that as of Dec. 9, there were about 4,200 troops who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. There are more than 1.2 million active-duty members of the military, according to the Defense Department.

Between 2015 and 2024, the Defense Department spent $52 million for care to active-duty service members to treat gender dysphoria, according to a Feb. 26 memo from the Pentagon.

The case before the Supreme Court arose out a challenge to the ban filed in Washington state, which was brought by seven transgender service members, one transgender person who wants to join the military and an advocacy group. They argued that the president’s ban violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and the First Amendment. 

A federal district court in March agreed to block implementation of the executive order and required the Trump administration to maintain the policy put in place by its predecessor. 

In his opinion granting a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle said the Trump administration did not put forth any evidence that allowing transgender people to serve openly harmed military readiness, unit cohesion or lethality.

“The government’s unrelenting reliance on deference to military judgment is unjustified in the absence of any evidence supporting ‘the military’s’ new judgment reflected in the Military Ban — in its equally considered and unquestionable judgment, that very same military had only the week before permitted active-duty plaintiffs (and some thousands of others) to serve openly,” he wrote. 

Settle was appointed to the district court in Tacoma by President George W. Bush and was a captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps, serving as a prosecutor in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and defense counsel in Fort Lewis, Washington.

Settle wrote in his opinion that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims, and said they raised “serious and important questions.”

“Because the military has operated smoothly for four years under the Austin Policy, any claimed hardship it may face in the meantime pales in comparison to the hardships imposed on transgender service members and otherwise qualified transgender accession candidates, tipping the balance of hardships sharply toward plaintiffs,” he said, referencing former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who led the Pentagon under Biden. “There can be few matters of greater public interest in this country than protecting the constitutional rights of its citizens.”

The Justice Department then asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to pause that decision, allowing it the ban to take effect, but it denied the request.

A similar challenge to Mr. Trump’s ban was filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C., where it, too, was blocked from taking effect. But the federal appeals court in Washington agreed to temporarily halt that order and heard arguments Tuesday on whether to keep its block in place while the appeal continues.

In its emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the courts should give “substantial deference” to the Defense Department’s military judgments.

“Absent a stay, the district court’s universal injunction will remain in place for the duration of further review in the Ninth Circuit and in this court — a period far too long for the military to be forced to maintain a policy that it has determined, in its professional judgment, to be contrary to military readiness and the nation’s interests,” he wrote.

Sauer rejected the claim that the administration’s rules discriminate based on transgender status and sex and said the policy draws classifications based on a medical condition — gender dysphoria — and related medical interventions, which means it satisfies the lowest, most deferential standard of judicial review.

“The Constitution entrusts to the political branches the authority to determine the composition of the armed forces. The department exercised that authority in adopting the 2025 policy to exclude ‘individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria,'” he wrote. “The district court’s injunction nevertheless forces the military to maintain a different policy — one that the department has concluded is inconsistent with ‘the best interests of the military services’ and with ‘the interests of national security.'”

The Supreme Court has given the plaintiffs until May 1 to respond to the Trump administration’s request for emergency relief.