Transgender troops can remain in US military, but enlistment can be blocked, court rules | US military
Transgender troops can remain in the U.S. military, but the armed forces can continue to bar them from enlisting, an appeals court ruled Monday, in a split decision that could have potentially significant ramifications for the Trump administration’s anti-diversity agenda.
Divided, majority opinion A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. is expected to hear the government appeal. And the case is likely to eventually reach the U.S. supreme court.
The decision was blocked from taking immediate effect, giving the administration time to ask the full appeals court to hear the case.
But it represents a clear rebuke from U.S. defense secretary Pete Hegseth for his implementation of Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order mandating the removal of hundreds of transgender service members.
In the majority opinion, district judge Robert Wilkins wrote that this ban of transgender people from the military was illegal and “both arbitrary and based on hostility.”
Monday’s decision mostly amounts to upholding a preliminary injunction issued by district court judge Ana Reyes in March 2025 that prevented the removal of six active-duty transgender people who are plaintiffs in the case.
“The Court understands that this opinion will provoke heated public debate and objection. Both are positive outcomes in a healthy democracy,” Reyes wrote at the time.
“But we must all agree that everyone who answers the call to serve deserves our gratitude and respect.”
Trump’s order claimed that transgender soldiers’ sexual identity “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, honest, and disciplined lifestyle, even in his personal life.” The resolution also argued that transgender service members’ gender identity is detrimental to military readiness.
Hegseth later issued a policy that would likely disqualify from military service people with gender dysphoria, a medical condition resulting from distress with one’s feelings about one’s gender identity.
Appellate court judges were ruling Monday on the government’s appeal of Reyes’ preliminary injunction. They decided to narrow the scope to an estimated 1,000 military members who openly identified as trans but not those who tried to participate.
“In this case, the government did not attempt to defend or provide any factual basis for these derogatory descriptions of American citizens,” Wilkins wrote, adding that the policy “appears to be driven by a pure desire to harm a politically unpopular group: people who identify as transgender.”
Wilkins was appointed to the appeals court by former Democratic president Barack Obama.
Dissenting judge Justin Walker, appointed by Trump during the first Republican presidency, argued that the judiciary does not have the authority or experience necessary to determine who can be excluded from the military.
He wrote that only the executive and legislative branches of the federal government “are responsible for systemwide military decisions regarding the composition of the armed forces.”
“The Supreme Court has never taken on this role alone,” Walker added. “Neither have a DC Circuit. To date.”
There was no reaction to the decision from the White House or the defense department.
Associated Press contributed reporting
