Trump asks Supreme Court to allow ban on transgender members of the
military to take effect, for now
[April 25, 2025]
By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday
asked the Supreme Court to allow enforcement of a ban on transgender
people in the military, while legal challenges proceed.
Without an order from the nation's highest court, the ban could not take
effect for many months, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote, “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.”
The high court filing follows a brief order from a federal appeals court
that kept in place a court order blocking the policy nationwide.
At the least, Sauer wrote, the court should allow the ban to take effect
nationwide, except for the seven service members and one aspiring member
of the military who sued.
The court gave lawyers for the service members challenging the ban a
week to respond.
Just after beginning his second term in January, Trump moved
aggressively to roll back the rights of transgender people. Among the
Republican president's actions was an executive order that claims the
sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a
soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined
lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military
readiness.
In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy that
presumptively disqualifies transgender people from military service.
But in March, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma,
Washington, ruled for several long-serving transgender military members
who say that the ban is insulting and discriminatory and that their
firing would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations.
The Trump 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 is a
former captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps.
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The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 17,
2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
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.
Sauer said the policy during Trump's first term and the one that has
been blocked are “materially indistinguishable.”
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, which includes two judges appointed by Trump during his first
term, appeared to be in favor of the administration's position.
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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Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this
report.
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