The Justice Department is appealing a ruling that says the policy was likely fueled by unconstitutional hostility and wants to keep the ban in place.
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WASHINGTON – The Trump administration will once again ask the Supreme Court to uphold the president’s ban on transgender people serving in the military.
In a July 16 filing, the Justice Department asked lower courts not to confirm a ruling that said the ban likely violated the military’s constitutional rights and could not be enforced against current service members who objected to the policy.
Government lawyers said they would appeal the June ruling to the Supreme Court by the end of August. They highlighted that a judge had already intervened in another challenge to the policy last year, when the majority said the ban could be enforced because it was in litigation.
If the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit does not agree to put the ruling on hold while the administration appeals, the government could ask the Supreme Court for an interim ruling suspending enforcement.
When a federal judge in Washington state intervened last year after suspending the ban, the court did not explain its decision.
The D.C. Court of Appeals said it was not bound by its ruling, which was more limited because the justices may have thought the suspension should apply only to service members who objected to the policy.
“The court’s reasoning is unexplained and may be based on the unconscionability of the universal nature of the injunction,” Judge Robert Wilkins wrote for a three-judge panel on the D.C. Court of Appeals.
The Justice Department argued that that reasoning was incorrect.
“The Supreme Court has blocked the injunction in its entirety, including the one applied to the named plaintiffs,” government lawyers wrote. “Thus, the injunction cannot be construed as relating solely to the universal scope of the injunction.”
The Justice Department also argues that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that states can ban transgender girls from participating in women’s sports teams supports its argument. That’s because the court rejected arguments that transgender students undergoing puberty blockers and hormone therapy should be given a chance to prove they no longer have an athletic advantage.
Similarly, the government wrote in its filing that the appropriateness of a Department of Defense policy depends on whether it has a reasonable relationship “to prevailing issues.”
“Adopting a gender identity that is inconsistent with an individual’s gender is inconsistent with the soldier’s commitment to an honorable, honest, and disciplined lifestyle,” reads an executive order signed by President Trump shortly after taking office.
Wilkins, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, wrote that the policy was arbitrary and “appears to be driven by a naked desire to harm a politically unpopular group: people who identify as transgender.”
Justice Justin Walker, an appointee of President Donald Trump, dissented, writing in the minority opinion that striking down Pentagon policy would amount to an “unprecedented intrusion into internal military operations.”
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth officially issued a ban on transgender people from military service in February 2025, effectively reinstating an order enacted by President Trump during his first term. Meanwhile, former President Joe Biden abolished the program days after taking office in 2021.
In a memo released last year, Hegseth said people experiencing symptoms of gender dysphoria “are unable to meet the rigorous standards required for military service.” He links the ban on transgender service members to a sweeping push to stamp out what he calls “woke” policies throughout the military.
According to data from the Department of the Army (formerly the Department of Defense), there are approximately 1.3 million active-duty members in the military. Transgender rights groups say as many as 15,000 transgender people serve in the military, but officials say the number is in the low thousands.
