Supreme Court stays lower court ruling, allowing Trump transgender ban to proceed

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with the Trump administration in lifting a lower court order that paused the Pentagon’s transgender military ban from taking effect – allowing Trump’s order and related policies to proceed, at least.

The high court ruling is a near-term victory for the White House, even as it did not address the underlying merits of the case or President Donald Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order banning transgender service members from the U.S. military.

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 Trump’s executive order banning transgender military members. 

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The executive order would require the Defense Department to update its guidance regarding “trans-identifying medical standards for military service” and to “rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness.”

The Trump administration has argued that further stalling the policy could pose a threat to U.S. military readines – concerns it outlined to Supreme Court in a filing late last month.

“Absent a stay, the district court’s universal injunction will remain in place for the duration of further review in the Ninth Circuit and in this Court – a period far too long for the military to be forced to maintain a policy that it has determined, in its professional judgment, to be contrary to military readiness and the Nation’s interests,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court, urging justices to grant the stay.

Trump officials have argued that the transgender military policy “furthers the government’s important interests in military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, and avoiding disproportionate costs.”

The case was immediately challenged in federal court. Seven transgender military members brought suit against the administration in Seattle-based federal court, and in Washington, D.C., where U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes grilled lawyers for the Trump administration in a dizzying line of questioning that invoked shelters, Jesus, and Miss Pac-Man, among other things, before asking the government to push its planned implementation deadline. That decision was later overturned by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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In the Seattle case, plaintiffs 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 issued a preliminary injunction in March that blocked the administration from identifying and removing transgender service members as the suit worked its way through the lower courts.

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 Jan. 27 executive order.

The administration quickly appealed the order to the 9th Circuit, requesting the appellate court stay Settle’s order.

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The administration argued in court filings that the policy “furthers the government’s important interests in military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, and avoiding disproportionate costs.”

A three-judge panel – composed of Judges Atsushi Wallace Tashima, a Clinton-appointee, John B. Owens, an Obama-appointee, and Roopali H. Desai, a Biden-appointee – denied the administration’s request for a stay on March 31, which was overturned by the Supreme Court ruling Tuesday.

“The Department of Justice has vigorously defended President Trump’s executive actions, including the Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness Executive Order, and will continue to do so,” a Justice Department official told Fox News Digital at the time. 

Shilling v. United States is just one of several suits challenging the Trump administration’s military ban. It comes as Trump has used his early days in office to undo major Biden-era policies, including their efforts to promote a diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, agenda.