By Katherine Tinsley
3:01am PDT, May 8, 2025
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The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, May 6, that
Donald Trump is allowed to carry out his transgender
military ban.
During Trump's second inauguration, the president denounced the concept of gender diversity. Since then, he's continued to push for policies that impact the trans community.
Keep reading for the details…
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In January, Donald Trump signed an executive order banning anyone who identifies as transgender from participating in the military.
Trump's order called for an end to "gender radicalism in the military."
Trump argued that "a man's assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."
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The Supreme Court previously upheld a similar policy during Donald Trump's first administration in 2019.
However, Joe Biden did away with the ban during his presidency.
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The National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLAD Law have been advocating against Donald Trump's policy, but the Supreme Court didn't rule it unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court approved of Trump's emergency petition to stop lower-level courts from blocking his policy.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs suing the Trump administration argued that the ban is a violation of their clients' 14th Amendment rights. They say the 2018 version of Trump's policy "lacked the animus-laden language" of the January ban.
In March, Seattle US District Judge Benjamin Settle blocked the ban from taking effect, calling it "unsupported, dramatic and facially unfair."
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Solicitor General
D. John Sauer filed a petition last month after the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit allowed an injunction to take place, which meant the Supreme Court would have the final decision on Donald Trump's order.
"This case does not plow new ground. In 2018, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis adopted a policy, materially indistinguishable from the one at issue here, that generally disqualified individuals with gender dysphoria from military service," Sauer said.
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In a memo released in February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is against DEI initiatives, said that "efforts to split our troops along the lines of identity weaken our Force and make us vulnerable."
While there isn't much data on how many transgender people are in the military, the New York Post reported that about 1% of total active-duty service members identify as trans.
