Supreme Court backs Trump transgender military ban
In a huge win for President Donald Trump and the U.S. military, the Supreme Court on Tuesday crushed a lower court’s attempt to block the Pentagon’s ban on “transgender” troops.
At the heart of the fight is Shilling v. United States, which challenges Trump’s January 27 executive order to keep our armed forces focused on readiness, not radical social experiments.
In his order, Trump argued the military had “been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion.”
Trump highlighted longstanding Defense Department policy that ensures U.S. troops are “[f]ree of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.”
“As a result, many mental and physical health conditions are incompatible with active duty, from conditions that require substantial medication or medical treatment to bipolar and related disorders, eating disorders, suicidality, and prior psychiatric hospitalization,” Trump’s order states.
Trump noted that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”
“Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, 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,” Trump’s order added. “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.”
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed with the court’s 6-3 decision, arguing the lower court’s injunction should remain in place.
The group of transgender service members behind the lawsuit argues the order “denies the existence of transgender people altogether” and removes them from the military “for no legitimate reason.”
“There are currently thousands of transgender people selflessly and patriotically serving in our Nation’s armed services across myriad roles, and many others seek to follow the same noble path,” the complaint states. “Transgender service members take the same oath as every other service member to serve our Nation and place themselves in harm’s way —potentially paying the ultimate price — in service of our Country.”
“And to be clear, our country needs ready, able, and willing service members to stand up and protect our freedoms. But the 2025 Military Ban turns them away and kicks them out—for no legitimate reason,” it continues. “Rather, it baselessly declares all transgender people unfit to serve, insults and demeans them, and cruelly describes every one of them as incapable of ‘an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life’ based solely because they are transgender. These assertions are, of course, false.”
