Supreme Court to allow enforcement of policy banning transgender troops May 8, 2025By Kate Scanlon OSV News Filed Under: News, Supreme Court, World News WASHINGTON (OSV News) — The U.S. Supreme Court said May 6 the Trump administration may enforce, for now, a ban on transgender troops serving in the military that had been blocked by lower courts. The brief, unsigned ruling did not explain the high court’s rationale, which is typical when it responds to emergency applications, as the Trump administration had filed in the case. However, the three justices from the court’s perceived liberal wing — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — noted that they dissented, but also did not provide their reasoning. At the start of his second term in January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order seeking to combat what he called “radical gender ideology” in the U.S. military. The Pentagon subsequently indicated it would form a procedure to identify transgender troops and discharge them, such as those who have received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or other surgical or hormonal treatments, unless they were given an exception. A similar ban on individuals who identify as transgender from serving in the U.S. military was implemented during the first Trump administration, which the Supreme Court allowed to stand in 2019. That policy was later reversed by the Biden administration. However, in its second attempt at implementing the policy, the Trump administration expanded the policy to include discharging active duty members experiencing gender dysphoria, rather than only seeking to prevent their enlistment, which may alter the high court’s rationale on such a ban. In guidance on health care policy and practices released in March 2023, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine outlined the church’s opposition to interventions that “involve the use of surgical or chemical techniques that aim to exchange the sex characteristics of a patient’s body for those of the opposite sex or for simulations thereof.” “Any technological intervention that does not accord with the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body, ultimately does not help but, rather, harms the human person,” the document said. According to data from the Pentagon, only a small percentage — 0.2 percent — of U.S. military members experience gender dysphoria, lower than some estimates predicted. Read More Supreme Court Supreme Court hears clash between Catholic preschools, Colorado over ‘universal’ program In rare interviews, Alito defends court’s independence, reflects on impact of Dobbs leak Supreme Court hears key climate change lawsuit, but procedural question remains Supreme Court expected to hear religious liberty, gun and environmental cases in its new term Supreme Court strikes down some Trump priorities, but expands presidential power Supreme Court finds Trump executive order on birthright citizenship unconstitutional Copyright © 2025 OSV News Print
