WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has requested the Supreme Court to permit the implementation of a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, while legal battles continue.
The high court filing follows a brief order from a federal appeals court that kept in place a court order blocking the policy nationwide.
Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order stating that the gender identity of transgender military members is not in alignment with the values of military service, claiming that it contradicts the principles of honor, truthfulness, and discipline, even in their personal lives, and could negatively impact military readiness.
In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy that presumptively disqualifies transgender people from military service.
However, in March, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma, Washington, ruled in favor of a group of transgender military personnel who argue that the ban is offensive and discriminatory, and that their dismissal would have enduring negative consequences on their professional trajectories and reputations.
Trump’s Republican administration offered no explanation as to why transgender troops, who have been able to serve openly over the past four years with no evidence of problems, should suddenly be banned, Settle wrote. The judge is an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush and a former captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps.
In 2016, during Barack Obama’s presidency, a Defense Department policy permitted transgender people to serve openly in the military. During Trump’s first term in the White House, the Republican issued a directive to ban transgender service members, with an exception for some of those who had already started transitioning under more lenient rules that were in effect during Obama’s Democratic administration.
The Supreme Court allowed that ban to take effect. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, scrapped it when he took office.
The rules the Defense Department wants to enforce contain no exceptions.
Thousands of transgender people serve in the military, but they represent less than 1% of the total number of active-duty service members.
The policy also has been blocked by a federal judge in the nation’s capital, but that ruling has been temporarily halted by a federal appeals court, which heard arguments on Tuesday. The three-judge panel includes two judges appointed by Trump during his first term.
In a more limited ruling, a judge in New Jersey also has barred the Air Force from removing two transgender men, saying they showed their separation would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations that no monetary settlement could repair.
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