Transgender soldiers are not welcome. Supreme Court upholds Trump's ban
After months of legal wrangling and public backlash, the US Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump's administration can implement a ban on transgender people in the armed forces. The decision was issued on Tuesday, May 6, and effectively overturns the preliminary injunctions of lower courts that have so far prevented the ban from going into effect.
The ruling was issued in the form of what is known as an emergency order, an extraordinary measure used by the Supreme Court for urgent cases. It was not signed by a specific judge and did not contain any reasons, which is common for this type of decision. Three justices appointed by Democratic presidents - Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson - dissented from the verdict.
Morally unfit, Trump says
The ban on transgender people in the service follows an executive order that Donald Trump signed this January. In it, he called transgender service members "morally unfit" and said their presence in the military undermines "lethal effectiveness, cohesion, honesty, humility, unity and integrity." However, these claims are not supported by any evidence.
In the wake of Trump's executive order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued new guidelines in March that gave soldiers whose gender identity did not match their sex at birth the option to voluntarily leave the service. Otherwise, they faced disciplinary action. But those rules were blocked by federal judges shortly before they took effect, following lawsuits filed by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Lambda Legal. Those cases eventually made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
A crushing blow to the community
Representatives of both organizations called the Supreme Court's decision a "crushing blow" to the transgender community and those already serving in the military. "This decision has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice," they said in a joint statement. "Transgender people meet the same standards and show the same commitment as others. We believe this ban violates constitutional equality protections and will ultimately be overturned."
Judge Ana Reyes of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., who first put Trump's ban on hold, did not spare criticism. She said it was an "overreach of executive power" and called the executive order incompatible with the constitutional rights the US military is supposed to protect.
Emily Shilling - a trans woman, veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the first female commander in the US Navy to regain her flying permit after gender-affirming surgery - also drew attention to the practical implications of the ban. "I served in two wartime missions, flew 60 combat sorties, was a test pilot, and reached the pinnacle of my career in naval aviation," she told PinkNews in January. "I am proof that we are capable of serving. There's no reason why I shouldn't be back in the cockpit."
The ban on transgender people in military service was originally put in place during Trump's first presidential term in 2016 and lifted by executive order by President Joe Biden in 2021. The current Supreme Court decision therefore marks a possible reinstatement of a policy that the US government has already abandoned once. How long the ban will last, however, depends on further legal developments - and on the outcome of the next presidential election.
