Days after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Pentagon’s ban on transgender-identifying service members, the Department of Defense will immediately begin moving as many as 1,000 people diagnosed with gender dysphoria out of the military.
Others will have 30 days to self-identify under a new directive issued Thursday.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military service on Tuesday. The high court lifted a nationwide injunction from a district judge, but it will likely revisit the case of Shilling v. United States. The high court hasn’t yet ruled on the merits of the policy.
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, asserting they would have allowed the pause to remain in place.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January stating transgender service allowed under the Biden administration is harmful to military readiness and stated it “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
In response to Trump’s executive order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the services 30 days to determine how to identify transgender service members and remove them.
U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma, Washington, had sided with seven transgender military members who sued. The plaintiffs claimed the ban is discriminatory, and would cause lasting damage to their careers. Settle, who was appointed to the bench in 2007 by President George W. Bush, had issued a nationwide injunction.
The district judge characterized the policy as a “blanket prohibition on transgender service,” and ruled that the plaintiffs would likely win the case based on equal protection, the First Amendment, and procedural due process.
The Justice Department filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court to lift the Washington state judge’s nationwide injunction. The Supreme Court ruling lifts the injunction, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has yet to rule on the policy.
Fred Lucas contributed to this report.
