Donald Trump has recently doubled down on fulfilling promises he made to his base—and among the most polarizing is his revival of a plan to bar transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military.
The decision has sparked widespread backlash as the policy edges closer to full enforcement.
Just one week after being sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, Trump signed an executive order titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness.” The directive moves to block transgender individuals from enlisting and calls for the discharge of those already serving who identify as transgender.
Two prominent LGBTQ legal advocacy groups—LGBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and the National Center for Lesbian Rights—quickly filed suit against the administration. In March, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, presiding in Washington, D.C., issued a temporary block on the order.
However, on May 6, 2025, the Supreme Court delivered a decisive blow to that pause, ruling in favor of the administration and permitting the policy to proceed, even as legal challenges remain unresolved.
The order contends that efforts to include transgender service members have “diluted the pursuit of military excellence” and accuses past policies of “accommodating political agendas or other ideologies.”
It further asserts that adopting a gender identity differing from one’s sex is incompatible with what it describes as “a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.”
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of six active-duty transgender troops and two transgender individuals seeking to enlist, challenges the policy as discriminatory at its core. It states that the ban “stems from animosity toward transgender people solely based on their identity.”
With legal and ethical debates intensifying, the battle over who has the right to serve continues to unfold on the national stage.
When U.S. District Judge Reyes blocked the order in March, the ruling was grounded in a scathing rebuke of its legality and intent. The judge declared that the policy clashed with the equal protection clause, calling out its clear discrimination on the basis of both transgender identity and sex. Reyes further condemned the language used in the policy as “unabashedly demeaning,” asserting that it casts transgender individuals as inherently unqualified—an assertion “untethered to any factual basis.”
Reyes noted that the government could have crafted a more balanced policy—one that respected both national security and the constitutional right to equal protection. “There was—and remains—an opportunity to strike that balance,” he stated. “But the Military Ban is not that compromise. And so, the Court must intervene to protect the very constitutional rights the military claims to safeguard.”
Despite this strong judicial stance, the Supreme Court later handed a significant victory to the Trump administration, allowing the policy to move forward. The unsigned ruling met sharp dissent from the Court’s three liberal justices, who made their opposition clear.
Human rights organizations didn’t stay silent.
In a forceful joint statement, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation condemned the decision: “By allowing this discriminatory ban to proceed while litigation continues, the Court has momentarily endorsed a policy driven by bias, not readiness.”
They continued, “Transgender service members hold themselves to the same standards, reflect the same commitment, and embody the same core values as any who wear the uniform. We firmly believe this ban tramples constitutional protections, and in the end, we believe justice will prevail.”