The United States Supreme Court has allowed the ban on transgender soldiers to take effect while judicial challenges concerning restriction continue.
Tuesday, the conservative majority of the Court published an uncommon order Rising the injunction of a lower court which had prevented the prohibition from taking effect.
The ordinance also indicated that the three judges on the left of the Supreme Court – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – sought to refuse the emergency request to raise the injunction.
Since he took office for a second term on January 20, President Donald Trump sought to reduce the rights and visibility of transgender people in the United States, including by restrictions on military service.
During his first day in power, Trump signed a decree declaring that his administration would “recognize only two sexes, men and women”. On the same day, he canceled an order of his predecessor, the Democrat Joe Biden, who allowed the transgender troops to serve in the army.
Then, on January 27, he unveiled a new directivecalled “prioritize military excellence and preparation”. He compared the transgender to the adoption of a “” false “gender identity”.
Such an identity, added the order, was not compatible with the “rigorous standards necessary for military service”.
“The adoption of a gender identity incompatible with the sex of an individual with the commitment of a soldier to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in his personal life,” said the decree.
“The affirmation of a man according to which he is a woman, and his requirement according to which the others honor this lie, is not in accordance with the humility and the altruism required by a soldier.”
This decree sparked a series of legal challenges, including that of the Center for the Ordinance of the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
In this case, seven members of the service in active service – as well as an organization of civil rights and another person hoping to enlist – argued that the ban on their transgender identity was discriminatory and unconstitutional.
The group’s defenders underline that the seven won more than 70 medals for their service together. The principal applicant, Commander Emily Shilling, had spent nearly two decades in the navy, piloting 60 missions as a combat driver. His lawyers estimate that nearly $ 20 million was invested in his training during this period.
But the Trump administration argued that the presence of transgender troops is a responsibility for the army.
“Another massive victory at the Supreme Court!” The press secretary of the White House Karoline Leavitt poster On social networks after Tuesday order.
“President Trump and [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] Restore a soldier who focuses on preparation and lethality. »»
Hegseth too poster A short message, using an acronym for the Ministry of Defense: “More trans @ dod”.
This is not the first time that Trump has been trying to exclude transgender people from the armed forces. In July 2017, shortly after taking office for his first mandate, Trump announced a similar policy on the Twitter social media platform, now known as X.
“After consultation with my generals and military experts, please note that the American government will not accept or allow transgender people to serve in any way in the American army,” wrote Trump consecutive publicationsDivided by Ellipses.
Likewise, in 2019, the Supreme Court authorized the prohibition to take effect. Then, in 2021, the executive order of Biden canceled it.
The Trump administration underlined its success at the Supreme Court in its emergency call to raise the injunction of the lower court blocking its last ban on transgender troops.
This temporary injunction was the decision of a judge of the American district court in Tacoma, Washington: Benjamin Settle. He himself a former army captain, Settle was appointed to his post under former President George W Bush, a Republican.
In March, Settle blocked the ban on transgender troops, claiming that – while the government has referred to “military judgment” in its deposits – its arguments showed an “absence of all proof” that the restriction had to do with military issues.
“Government’s arguments are not convincing, and this is not a particularly close question of this file,” he wrote.
Other judges have also published injunctions, including District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, DC. She ruled in a case where 14 members of the transgender service continued the prohibition of Trump, citing the right to equal protection under the law, devoted in the fifth amendment to the Constitution.
“The cruel irony is that thousands of transgender soldiers have sacrificed – some risking their lives – to guarantee others the very equal protection rights that the military ban seeks to deny them,” wrote Reyes in his decision, published shortly before March.
Of the more than 2.1 million soldiers serving in the American army, less than 1% are estimated as transgender.
A senior official estimated last year that there are only 4,200 members of the Transgender Service in active service, although defenders say that this number could be a sub-account, given the risk of violence and discrimination associated with transgenderly.
The human rights defense groups Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation were among those who supported transgender soldiers in their fight against Trump’s ban. The two organizations published on Tuesday a joint declaration denounced the decision of the High Court.
“By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our dispute continues, the Court temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military preparation and everything that has to do with prejudices,” they wrote.
“We remain firmly in our conviction that this prohibition violates the constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be canceled.”
