BREAKING: Appeals court upholds Trump's trans military ban

A federal appeals court in Washington, DC has upheld the Trump administration's ban on transgender persons serving in the military. The court overturned a March administrative stay that blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to ban transgender people from joining the military in a 2-1 ruling. The stay is paused pending appeal.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia panel wrote in its decision, "The United States military enforces strict medical standards to ensure that only physically and mentally fit individuals join its ranks. For decades, these requirements barred service by individuals with gender dysphoria, a medical condition associated with clinically significant distress."

The court said that prospective and current service members "must meet strict medical standards," and that hundreds of medical conditions can disqualify a person, ranging from poor vision and hearing, asthma, and high blood pressure to mental health conditions like bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and substance-related disorders. 

"These requirements advance many military objectives. Among other things, they ensure that service members can complete required training, serve in harsh or remote environments, and perform their duties as safely as possible," the court wrote. "The standards also reduce the risk that service members will 'require excessive time lost from duty' for medical reasons."

The court wrote that prior to 2016, "the medical standards discussed above broadly barred transgender individuals from military service." However, over the last decade, repeated rule changes have taken place that "all distinguish between transgender individuals and individuals with gender dysphoria." The ruling stated that a "subset of transgender individuals experience 'gender dysphoria,' a psychological condition stemming from such an incongruence" between their self-perceived gender and their biological sex. 

A 2016 policy permitted transgender individuals to serve in the military if they did not suffer from gender dysphoria. Under his first term, Trump ordered a reconsideration of that policy. A new policy was issued in 2018 that barred those who would require or had undergone a sex change from military service, as well as those with gender dysphoria who were not stable. Under the Biden administration, an executive order was issued allowing transgender service members to serve. 

In Trump’s revocation of Biden’s executive order upon returning to office, he "cited longstanding DoD guidance requiring service members to be 'free of medical conditions” that may “require excessive time lost from duty.’ He further emphasized that the Armed Forces 'must adhere to high mental and physical health standards' to ensure that they can 'deploy, fight, and win, including in austere conditions and without the benefit of routine medical treatment or special provisions,'" the court noted.

The district court in March sided with the transgender plaintiffs in the case, concluding that "the policy assertedly discriminates based on sex and transgender status."

The court stated that the policy from Hegseth "likely does not violate equal protection" as claimed by the transgender plaintiffs. "We doubt that the policy triggers any form of heightened scrutiny. In Skrmetti, the Supreme Court held that a law prohibiting the use of hormones to treat gender dysphoria in minors 'classifies on the basis of medical use' and thus does not discriminate based on either sex or transgender status. The same reasoning would seem to cover the Hegseth Policy, which classifies based on the medical condition of gender dysphoria." The court wrote that the Hegseth policy "is likely constitutional."

The court said that in cases regarding military rules, the judicial branch "must be 'reluctant to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in military and national security affairs,'" and that "our review of constitutional challenges to military rules thus 'is far more deferential than constitutional review of similar laws or regulations designed for civilian society.'"

The Hegseth policy, the court wrote, advances "several legitimate military interests," including military readiness and unit cohesion, such as the issue of sex-separated spaces and sex-based physical fitness standards. "We cannot lightly dismiss these concerns."

Talbott v USA by Hannah Nightingale