Summary of Key Points:
- The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration’s transgender military ban to take effect, reversing a lower court’s injunction that had paused the ban.
- The case in question is Shilling v. United States, which challenges Trump’s January 2025 executive orderbanning transgender individuals from military service.
- The order directs the Pentagon to revise its medical standards and revoke previous guidance viewed as inconsistent with “military readiness.”
- The Supreme Court’s decision was not unanimous; Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissented.
- The lower court judge, Benjamin Settle, had blocked the ban, arguing the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on constitutional grounds, including equal protection and due process.
- The administration appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which refused to stay the injunction—but the Supreme Court overruled and granted the stay, allowing the ban to proceed while litigation continues.
- This ruling is not a final decision on the case’s merits; it merely lifts the pause on the ban while the full lawsuit is ongoing.
- Other lawsuits are active, including one in D.C. federal court, where Judge Ana Reyes had also initially blocked the ban.
I’m experimenting with a new format, what do you think?
Quick bullet points at the top before jumping into the meat and potatoes?
Drop me a comment below and let me know if you like this format. Good move? Bad move?
Ok, now let’s really dig in.
At the rate we were doing with (liberal) Justice Roberts and (liberal) Justice Coney Barrett and (liberal beer guzzling) Justice Kavanaugh stabbing President Trump in the back at every turn, it was beginning to look like he couldn’t get a fair shake.
I’m happy to report we finally have a good one.
Score a big win for President Trump and Pete Hegseth, but note this is only temporary.
This is only a lifting of a ban on President Trump’s Executive Order that was put into place by a lower court.
The battle is far from over.
Here are more details, from Fox News:
The Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration in lifting a lower court’s order that paused the Pentagon’s transgender military ban.
In a short order on Tuesday, the high court handed the White House win as Trump seeks to unmake the Biden-era diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agenda. The court stayed a lower court order, allowing the Pentagon policy to take effect. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the administration’s appeal and kept the lower court injunction in place.
At issue in the suit, Shilling v. United States, is President Donald Trump’s January executive order banning transgender military members. The order required the Department of Defense to update its guidance regarding “trans-identifying medical standards for military service” and to “rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness.”
Seven transgender military members proceeded to then bring suit against the administration in a Seattle-based federal court in early February. Trump was dismissed from the suit as a defendant in his official capacity as the suit played out in court.
The initial complaint argued that the executive order “turns” away transgender military members “and kicks them out – for no legitimate reason.”
“Rather, it baselessly declares all transgender people unfit to serve, insults and demeans them, and cruelly describes every one of them as incapable of ‘an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,’ based solely because they are transgender,” it continued.
U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle had issued a preliminary injunction in March that blocked the administration from identifying and removing transgender service members as the suit worked its way through legal proceedings.
In his opinion granting the injunction, Settle characterized the ban as a “blanket prohibition on transgender service.” Settle found the plaintiffs would likely succeed on the merits of their equal protection, First Amendment, and procedural due process claims, among others.
“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record,” Settle wrote.
Settle wrote in his order that the injunction was to “maintain the status quo of military policy regarding both active-duty and prospective transgender service” that were in place prior to Trump’s January 27 executive order.
The administration quickly appealed the order to the Ninth Circuit, requesting the appellate court stay Settle’s order.
We will continue to monitor the story and bring you updates.
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