The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on whether a ban on transgender service members in the military violates the Constitution. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer called a decision by a federal appeals court that barred the government from enforcing the ban “gravely erroneous.” “If allowed to stand,” Sauer told the justices, the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit “would represent an ‘unprecedented intervention into military affairs,’ in contravention of this Court’s precedents requiring ‘defer[ence] to the political branches’ military judgments.”The Trump administration adopted the policy last year, shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration for his second term. Trump signed an executive order that required Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to put into effect a ban on “individuals with gender dysphoria.”On Feb. 26, the Department of Defense issued that ban, which generally disqualifies anyone who either has gender dysphoria or has undergone medical interventions to treat gender dysphoria from serving in the military. The department explained that “the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.”A group of transgender people who either currently serve in the U.S. military or want to serve in the military challenged the ban in federal court in Washington, D.C., arguing that the policy violates their constitutional right to fair treatment by the government. The policy, they contended, is based on “animosity toward transgender people” because they are transgender and does not serve any real government purpose.On March 18, 2025, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued an order that temporarily prohibited the Trump administration from implementing the ban. She agreed with the challengers that the ban is “soaked in animus” and does not serve any legitimate government interest. “Its language,” she wrote, “is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”The Trump administration appealed to the D.C. Circuit, which issued an administrative stay – a pause to keep Reyes’ order on hold until that court could rule on the dispute.In May 2025, the Supreme Court temporarily froze an order by a federal judge in a different challenge, filed in Washington state, that had barred the government from implementing the policy anywhere in the United States. That case is still pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.On June 1, 2026, a divided three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit upheld part of Reyes’ order, holding that the government could not enforce the ban against the challengers who were already in the military.Judge Robert Wilkins found “direct evidence” that the ban was motivated by animosity towards transgender people. He wrote that the policy’s “foundational premises” are “animus-filled”: It rests on the idea that “persons with a ‘false gender identity’ are unfit for the military, and persons with a history of gender dysphoria are also unfit because they lack ‘honesty, humility, … and integrity.”In the Trump administration’s petition on Friday seeking review of the D.C. Circuit’s decision, Sauer told the justices that the case involved “an issue of exceptional and recurring importance”: “the authority of the federal government to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces.” Here, he wrote, “the military has determined” that the policy “is necessary to maintain its ‘rigorous standards’ and ‘deliver a ready, deployable force.’”Sauer also contended that the lower court applied an overly stringent standard, known as heightened scrutiny, in concluding that the ban violates the Constitution. He stressed that a less exacting standard, known as rational basis review, should apply because the policy doesn’t discriminate against transgender people but instead “classifi[es] based on a medical condition (gender dysphoria).” Under rational basis review, he said, the government is only required to show that there are “‘plausible reasons’” for its actions, which there are: “the government has undisputedly legitimate interests in maintaining military readiness, cohesion, and good order and discipline, as well as in managing the military’s costs.”The challengers’ response to the petition will be due in approximately one month.
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