Hegseth says ‘see you at SCOTUS’ after appeals court rules Trump admin illegally banned active transgender troops
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday he is willing to hear a federal appeals court ruling limiting the Supreme Court’s military ban on transgender people.
Earlier in the day, a divided federal appeals court panel ruled that the Trump administration unconstitutionally deported active-duty service members because they were transgender, under a policy implemented by Hegseth last year. However, the panel allowed the Pentagon to enforce its ban on transgender individuals who want to serve in the military.
“See you at SCOTUS,” Hegseth wrote on social platform XHe’s responding to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin’s post about the decision.
In a 2-1 decision on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Hegseth’s order to discharge transgender soldiers from the armed forces was motivated by hostility toward them and thus amounted to a violation of their constitutional rights.
U.S. Circuit Judges Judith Rogers and Robert Wilkins, appointed by former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, respectively, were in the majority. U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, whom President Trump nominated to the federal appeals court in 2020, voted to allow the administration to fully enforce the ban.
Shortly after Trump returned to office signed administrative order It states that transgender people “fail to meet the stringent standards required for military service.”
In the decision, “hormonal and surgical interventions” applied to transgender individuals who claimed that transgender identity was incompatible with military service and “a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, honest and disciplined lifestyle even in his personal life” were cited.
“For the good of our nation and the patriotic Americans who volunteer to serve it, military service should be reserved for those who are mentally and physically fit for duty,” the order said. “The Armed Forces must adhere to high standards of mental and physical health so that our military can deploy, fight and win under difficult conditions and without routine medical treatment or special provisions.”
Following Monday’s decision, the administration will be able to appeal to the full D.C. Circuit or directly to the Supreme Court. When a separate challenge to the policy reached the high court last year, the justices allowed the ban to stand in an emergency order without explanation.
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