Trump admin asks SCOTUS to allow trans ban on military to go forward

The Trump administration has requested that the Supreme Court allow the Pentagon’s ban on transgender troops in the military to take effect, coming after federal judges blocked the order from taking effect.

In the appeal, Solicitor General John Sauer argued that without a stay in the case, an injunction issued by the US District Court for the Western District of Washington would 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."

"In this case, the district court issued a universal injunction usurping the Executive Branch’s authority to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces—despite this Court previously staying injunctions against a materially indistinguishable policy," Sauer wrote.

The Department of Defense adopted a policy in February that "generally disqualifies from military service individuals who have gender dysphoria or have undergone medical interventions for gender dysphoria," Sauer explained, adding that the policy was based in part by findings from under the first Trump administration. A panel of experts found that "service by individuals with gender dysphoria was contrary to 'military effectiveness and lethality.’"

Sauer noted that in 2018, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis adopted a policy "materially indistinguishable from the one at issue here" that was challenged in courts. "This Court stayed those injunctions," Sauer said, noting two 2019 cases, "and it should do the same here."

"Because the 2025 policy, like the Mattis policy, turns on a medical condition (gender dysphoria) and related medical interventions, the Constitution demands only rational-basis review, especially in the military context. The 2025 policy, like the Mattis policy, readily satisfies that review."

Speaking on a similar order recently issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals also blocking the order from taking effect, Sauer wrote, "In a one-page order, the Ninth Circuit asserted that the government had not shown that it would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay. But in staying the injunctions against the Mattis policy, this Court necessarily determined that those injunctions would otherwise cause the government irreparable harm.”

"The same is true here: Like the injunctions against the Mattis policy, the injunction against the 2025 policy irreparably harms the government by forcing it to maintain a policy that the Department has found to be inconsistent with 'the best interests of the Military Services' and with 'the interests of national security.'"