WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to block a lower court’s decision allowing transgender individuals to continue enlisting and serving in the armed forces.
Administration officials are seeking a stay of a broad district court ruling in late March that applied to all troops rather than only to those who challenged President Donald Trump’s executive order in court. The U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling Friday.
The government contends its policy does not discriminate against an entire class of people, but rather finds a diagnosis or history of gender dysphoria to be disqualifying. Gender dysphoria is recognized by medical professionals as distress caused by an incongruence between a person’s gender identity and their sex at birth.
In its application to the Supreme Court Thursday afternoon, the Department of Justice argued it’s likely to succeed in the case because the newly adopted policy does not differ widely from those in place under former secretaries of defense.
“The policy was based in part on the findings of a panel of experts convened during the first Trump Administration, which found that service by individuals with gender dysphoria was contrary to ‘military effectiveness and lethality,’” wrote John Sauer, Trump’s solicitor general.
Sauer also argued the district court’s universal order violated the power of the president.
Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 27, asserting the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” Further, the order said that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued the new policy a month later, reversing former President Joe Biden’s order allowing service members to transition and serve openly under their preferred gender identity.
Trump’s order immediately drew court challenges, including a separate case now in the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia.
A Department of Justice attorney arguing before the D.C. Circuit Tuesday alerted the judges that the administration would “imminently” appeal the 9th Circuit decision to the Supreme Court.
Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Foundation, who are representing plaintiffs in the 9th Circuit case, released a statement in response Tuesday asserting, “Transgender service members have been openly serving our country with honor and distinction for almost a decade and have met and are meeting every neutral service-based standard.”
“The U.S. Supreme Court should reject the invitation to stay the district court’s injunction so that they can impose their discriminatory ban while the litigation proceeds,” the statement said.
The administration’s emergency application to the high court Thursday is just the latest in the administration’s whack-a-mole battle against lower federal court rulings that have blocked White House actions, particularly on immigration.
This article is republished under a Creative Commons license from Kentucky Lantern, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on Facebook and Twitter.
Ashley Murray covers the nation’s capital as a senior reporter for States Newsroom. Her coverage areas include domestic policy and appropriations.
