U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court allows ban on transgender troops to take effect
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to enforce a ban on transgender troops while a legal challenge continues. (Image from Shutterstock)
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to enforce a ban on transgender troops while a legal challenge continues.
The Supreme Court stayed a preliminary injunction blocking the transgender ban issued in March by U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle of the Western District of Washington.
Settle had ruled that the ban on service by transgender people likely violates their Fifth Amendment rights to equal protection and procedural due process and their First Amendment right to express a gender identity different from their birth sex.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated that they would have denied the federal government’s emergency application for a stay of Settle’s injunction.
The New York Times, USA Today, Reuters, SCOTUSblog and CNN are among the publications with coverage of the Supreme Court’s May 6 order.
The Trump administration had argued that Settle’s injunction “cannot be squared with the substantial deference that the department’s professional military judgments are owed.” Nor can the injunction be squared with Supreme Court orders allowing a previous transgender troop ban to take effect during the first Trump administration, the government said.
President Donald Trump had called for the new ban in two executive orders issued in January, according to the New York Times. The first revoked a Biden administration policy that allowed transgender people to serve openly in the military. The second said the armed forces must adhere to high mental and physical health standards.
“Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” the order said.
The plaintiffs are seven transgender service members; a transgender man who wants to enlist; and the Gender Justice League, an advocacy group. They are represented by Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization, and the Human Rights Campaign, according to a May 6 press release.
“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 in the press release.
The case is United States v. Shilling.
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