The Trump administration moved Friday to bring its transgender military ban before the Supreme Court, asking the justices to let the Pentagon put the policy into effect while sharply criticizing a lower court decision that blocked it as “gravely erroneous.”
In its filing, the administration urged the nation’s highest court to decide whether the ban is constitutional and to overturn a ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that stopped the Pentagon from removing transgender service members from the ranks.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that leaving the appeals court’s decision in place would amount to an “unprecedented intervention into military affairs.”
President Trump issued the executive order in January 2025, barring transgender people from serving in the military and asserting that their service undermines military readiness.
Following that directive, War Secretary Pete Hegseth rolled out a Pentagon policy that would make individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria ineligible to enlist. The policy also pressed transgender troops already on active duty to leave voluntarily or risk being removed from service.
A divided appeals court panel ruled 2-1 in June to mostly preserve a lower court order that found Trump’s executive action likely infringes on the constitutional rights of transgender people.
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That appeals court decision, however, was limited in scope: it protected only the transgender plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit and did not extend to people hoping to join the armed forces.
Sauer argued that the ruling demands Supreme Court review, writing that the military’s power to decide who is eligible to serve in the nation’s armed forces is an issue of “exceptional importance.”
“Whether the Constitution prohibits the military from exercising that authority by adopting a policy like the one here is a recurring issue, which has arisen before and will likely arise again absent this Court’s review,” the solicitor general continued. “The Court should thus take this opportunity to address the constitutionality of the Hegseth policy and reverse the decision below, whose reasoning cannot be squared with this Court’s precedents or deference to the military.”
The justices are expected to decide whether to take up the case when they return to work from their summer recess.
Lawyers representing the plaintiffs argued that the Supreme Court should not intervene until the case is finished working its way through the lower courts.
“The Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to rush in and bless the expulsion of proven, decorated soldiers before a single court has issued a final judgment,” Shannon Minter, the legal director for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said in a statement.
“There is no circuit split, no emergency, and no merit – only a policy that multiple courts have now found was driven by prejudice rather than military need,” Minter continued. “The Trump administration is needlessly attempting to ram through policies that will cause irreparable harm to servicemembers and their families.
“The Court should deny this request.”
