The Trump administration is urging the Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a lawsuit over its policy barring transgender people from the military, a policy for which the high court handed the administration an interim win last year.
The Department of Justice filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the justices late last week, asking the Supreme Court to look at whether the Department of War policy, which bars people with gender dysphoria from serving in the military, violates constitutional equal rights protections, as lower federal courts have found. A federal district court in Washington, D.C., along with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, ruled that the policy was arbitrary and implemented with animus against transgender people. Solicitor General D. John Sauer implored the high court to take up the appeal of the ruling and reverse the “gravely erroneous holding,” asserting that the military must have deference to determine mental and physical health standards for troops.
“The authority of the U.S. military to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces is a matter 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,” Sauer wrote, noting the policy was previously adopted under the first Trump administration.
“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,” Sauer added.
The D.C. Circuit’s ruling limited its scope to the current transgender-identifying service members who were part of the lawsuit, meaning the Trump administration’s ban has remained in effect for transgender-identifying people not already in the military who are seeking to join. In a separate lawsuit still working its way through the 9th Circuit, a federal court had attempted to block the policy completely, but the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow the policy to remain in place in the interim. The May 2025 emergency docket ruling did not have any explanation from the six-justice majority.
The Supreme Court is currently in its summer recess and is expected to return to reviewing petitions in the coming weeks when it resumes closed-door conferences in its upcoming term. The earliest the high court is likely to say whether it will take up the case is October or later this year.
SUPREME COURT ALLOWS TRUMP TO CONTINUE WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM CONSTRUCTION
Transgender issues have been a winning topic for the Trump administration at the Supreme Court, where it has notched wins on both the emergency docket and the merits docket.
In June, the Supreme Court upheld state laws barring biological men from women’s sports, a policy which the administration championed, and last year the high court allowed the administration’s rule mandating that passports must reflect a person’s biological sex, rather than his or her gender identity, also via its emergency docket.