(LifeSiteNews) — In a key victory for the Trump administration, a D.C. circuit panel issued an order on Tuesday dissolving the administrative stay on Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s ban on transgender-identifying service members in the military. In the 2-1 ruling, the court stated that the lower court’s administrative stay neglected to grant Hegseth appropriate deference.
“This ruling is a huge victory for the United States’ military readiness,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to LifeSiteNews. “The D.C. Circuit confirmed that the United States military is not a social experiment, and the Secretary of War is who sets military standards – not left-wing activists.”
“The Hegseth Policy likely does not violate equal protection,” judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao wrote. “We doubt that the policy triggers any form of heightened scrutiny … Even if the Hegseth Policy contained a classification triggering some form of heightened scrutiny, decades of precedent establish that the judiciary must tread carefully when asked to second-guess considered military judgments of the political branches.”
The judges added, “And we must do so even in cases involving sex-based or other quasi-suspect classifications. … Moreover, the Supreme Court already has held that the government is likely to succeed on its contention that the Hegseth Policy does not violate equal protection.”
Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote a dissenting opinion, rejecting both the premises of the ban and the evidence supplied in Trump’s executive order, stating, “The majority grants this stay in the face of all evidence to the contrary. We should not accord deference to the military when the Department itself carelessly relied on no more than blatant animus.”
In a January 27 executive order titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” President Donald Trump ordered that trans-identifying members of the military be removed, noting that the “Armed Forces have 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.” The EO further stated that:
Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, 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. 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.
District Court Judge Ana Reyes issued an injunction against Trump’s executive order in March. The ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in May, allowing it to be implemented while litigation continued.
On November 6, plaintiffs (including trans-identifying service members) represented by GLAD Law and the National Center for LGBTQ rights asked the D.C. Circuit to lift the prior stay to allow Judge Reyes’ preliminary injunction to take effect on the basis that the ban caused “irreparable harm” and was “driven by animus.”
The motion was granted on November 17, pausing enforcement of the ban nationwide. Tuesday’s decision removes that administrative stay.
“Under the strong leadership of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, the military is getting back to basics and restoring the warrior ethos,” Parnell stated. “We will not compromise our standards to satisfy quotas or an ideological agenda.”
