The United States Supreme Court has allowed a ban on transgender military members to take effect while legal challenges over the restriction continue.On Tuesday, the court’s conservative majority issued an unsigned order lifting a lower court’s injunction that had blocked the ban from taking effect.
The order also indicated that the Supreme Court’s three left-leaning judges – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – sought to deny the emergency request to lift the injunction.
Since taking office for a second term on January 20, President Donald Trump has sought to curtail the rights and visibility of transgender people in the US, including through restrictions on military service.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order declaring that his administration would only “recognise two sexes, male and female”. That same day, he rescinded an order from his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, that allowed transgender troops to serve in the military.
Then, on January 27, he unveiled a new directive, called “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness”. It compared being transgender with adopting a “‘false’ gender identity”. Advertisement
Such an identity, the order added, was not compatible with the “rigorous standards necessary for military service”.
“Adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” the executive order said.
“A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
That executive order sparked a slew of legal challenges, including the one at the centre of Tuesday’s Supreme Court order.
In that case, seven active-duty service members – as well as a civil rights orga …
