The U.S. Supreme Court was like, “Yeah, Trump can totally go ahead with the whole ban on transgender military peeps,” which is a bit harsh tbh. This all went down on Tuesday, when the court was just like, “Sure, lift that injunction against the policy,” because apparently it’s dramatic and unfair or whatever. Not really sure why this matters, but the court was all mysterious about it and said the order would expire if they decide to take up the case for real and strike it down. So, like, there’s still some legal drama happening in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, so stay tuned for that.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson were like, “Nah, we ain’t feeling this,” and would have denied Trump’s request for a stay. Back in Trump’s first term, the Supreme Court was in a similar situation and lifted an injunction against a ban on transgender service members. But then Biden came in and ended the policy, and now thousands of transgender peeps have been serving actively for the past four years.
According to the Pentagon, there are over 4,200 active service members with gender dysphoria, which is the military’s way of keeping track of transgender troops. But advocacy groups are like, “Nah, it’s more like 15,000 trans service members,” so who really knows? Anyway, thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision, the military can start kicking out transgender service members and stop enlisting new ones.
The Trump administration was all like, “Yo, the president should have total power over the military, so let’s call this a ‘medical’ exclusion.” They claimed that gender dysphoria messes with unit cohesion and lethality, but a couple of federal judges were like, “Eh, not really seeing the evidence there.” At the end of April, the Trump team made an emergency request to lift the nationwide injunction blocking the ban on openly transgender military peeps.
Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Settle, who was nominated by George W. Bush, was the one who put the injunction in place back in March. He said the policy was basically a big “no” to transgender soldiers and aimed to kick them out. The case started with seven transgender service members and one person who wants to enlist in the Marine Corps. Advocates for the service members were not happy about the ruling and called it a “devastating blow.”
They were like, “This ban is just discrimination, not about military stuff,” and they’re sticking to their guns that it violates constitutional rights and will eventually get thrown out. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked about why exceptional transgender soldiers were getting the boot, and he was all about readiness and deployability. So, like, it’s an ongoing thing, I guess.
The Supreme Court made a decision, Trump’s ban is moving forward, and transgender service members are caught in the middle. It’s a messy situation, and it’s not really clear where things are headed. But one thing’s for sure, this is a big deal for a lot of people involved.
