Supreme Court allows transgender troop ban

What happened

The Supreme Court Tuesday said the Trump administration's ban on transgender military service members could go into force while the policy is litigated in a lower court. The justices did not explain their decision, which the court's three liberal justices opposed.

Who said what

The Pentagon said transgender troops would be banned and purged after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling transgender identity a "falsehood" conflicting with "a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle." Two federal judges blocked the ban in March. One stay was paused by an appellate panel in Washington, D.C., but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift a nationwide injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle, a George W. Bush appointee.

Settle said the government's "unrelenting reliance on deference to military judgment is unjustified in the absence of any evidence" presented to justify forcing out honorably serving transgender troops. Government lawyers argued that "federal judges were overstepping their bounds by intruding on" Trump's authority to "supervise the armed forces," Politico said. The Supreme Court's sanctioning of Trump's sweeping "government-imposed bigotry" is "shameful," Mark Joseph Stern said at Slate, and the terse, "unreasoned brush-off" of Settle's "diligent, top-to-bottom evisceration" of the government's rationale is "especially galling."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What next?

The case returns to the 9th Circuit. But the Supreme Court's lifting of Settle's hold "is a strong indicator that the administration is ultimately likely to prevail," NPR said.