The Supreme Court is allowing Trump to temporarily move forward with his ban on transgender people serving in the military. The court’s three liberal Justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—all dissented, according to the brief order.
Trump’s ban “generally disqualifies from military service individuals who have gender dysphoria or have undergone medical interventions for gender dysphoria,” according to Solicitor General D. John Sauer.
Trans people are a hindrance to “military effectiveness and lethality,” Sauer wrote in a filing to the high court’s justices.
Litigation over the constitutionality of the ban is still ongoing. A Bush-appointed judge in a lower court blocked Trump’s executive order banning transgender troops in the military, which he signed on his first day in office.
Judge Benjamin Settle in Washington issued a nationwide injunction in March, ruling there’s “no claim and no evidence that [plaintiff] is now, or ever was, a detriment to her unit’s cohesion, or to the military’s lethality or readiness, or that she is mentally or physically unable to continue her service.”
Trump’s ban—and the claims that trans people are worse at operating lethal machinery simply because they are trans—is nonsensical. This is purely a culture-war item, a bone to throw at a base that’s been obsessed with transgender people for years now.
This story has been updated.
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