A federal appeals court on Tuesday sided with War Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Trump Administration in upholding a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. Military.
The ban, which bars transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming individuals from serving in the U.S. military, including separation of current service members, was enacted by President Donald Trump through Executive Order 14183 this past January. The Department of Defense, as it was then known, issued implementing guidance on February 26, 2025, establishing the policy’s operational details.
The order, titled, prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” states that the U.S. military’s mission is to protect the American people as the world’s most lethal fighting force, requiring focus on warrior ethos without dilution by political agendas or ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.
It directs the Secretary of War to establish policies promoting high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity, specifically addressing gender-related matters to align with biological sex distinctions. The resulting Department of Defense policy disqualifies individuals with a current or historical diagnosis of gender dysphoria or those who have undergone gender-affirming medical interventions from enlisting or continuing service, with no grandfather clause for existing servicemembers.
Less than a month later, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on March 18, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stating that the ban would upend the status quo for transgender service members and was unlikely to survive judicial review under equal protection standards.
U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle issued another nationwide preliminary injunction on March 27, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, in which he claimed there was no evidence that transgender service harms military readiness or cohesion. The Bush-appointed judge further described the policy as a discriminatory blanket prohibition that relied on distorted data.
Judge Ana C. Reyes, a Biden appointee, issued a nationwide injunction against the policy back in March
On Tuesday December 9, 2025, a D.C. appeals court dissolved the administrative stay on the transgender military ban.
In a 2-1 ruling, the court said a lower court didn’t offer Hegseth enough deference in issuing its stay.
“The Hegseth Policy likely does not violate equal protection. We doubt that the policy triggers any form of heightened scrutiny….Even if the Hegseth Policy contained a classification triggering some form of heightened scrutiny, decades of precedent establish that the judiciary must tread carefully when asked to second-guess considered military judgments of the political branches,” Judge Gregory Katsas and Judge Neomi Rao, both Trump appointees, wrote in the majority opinion.
“And we must do so even in cases involving sex-based or other quasi-suspect classifications. Moreover, the Supreme Court already has held that the government is likely to succeed on its contention that the Hegseth Policy does not violate equal protection,” they added.
The U.S. Supreme Court previously intervened on May 6, 2025, granting the government’s application to stay Judge Settle’s nationwide injunction in a 6-3 order without explanation, allowing policy implementation while lower court challenges continued.
Ongoing merits appeals in the Ninth and D.C. Circuits, including potential certiorari petitions, position the case for possible full Supreme Court review on constitutional grounds such as equal protection and due process.
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