Appeals court had found ban ‘arbitrary and based upon animus’
The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to review a federal appeals court’s June ruling that found the Pentagon’s policy on transgender service members unlawful. Solicitor General John D. Sauer filed the petition asking the justices to overturn the D.C. Circuit’s decision that the ban was “both arbitrary and based upon animus.”
The petition frames the case as a constitutional question about military personnel authority. “The authority of the U.S. military to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces is a matter of exceptional importance,” Sauer wrote. “Whether the Constitution prohibits the military from exercising that authority by adopting a policy like the one here is a recurring issue, which has arisen before and will likely arise again absent this Court’s review.”
Sauer characterized the appeals court’s equal-protection analysis as “gravely erroneous” and disputed the lower court’s finding that the policy reflected “invidious discrimination against trans-identifying people.”
The underlying case stems from a February lawsuit filed by the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and GLAD Law challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump early in his second term. The order asserted that transgender troops’ health needs were “inconsistent” with military service.
In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the military’s attempts to remove transgender Americans were “both arbitrary and based upon animus.” Judge Robert Wilkins said in the ruling that the ban “appears driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group.”
Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law’s senior director of transgender and queer rights, said in a statement that the organization is confident the Supreme Court will side with the plaintiffs. “We are confident the Supreme Court will affirm that the Trump administration cannot base policies on hostility toward a group of people,” Levi said.
Levi added that the ban would discharge qualified service members at significant public cost. “As the Trump administration’s own attorneys admitted, these are qualified individuals who are meeting all military standards,” she said. “There is no reason to waste millions of taxpayer dollars to kick out thousands of highly trained, skilled, and decorated troops based on nothing but hostility and this administration’s political whims.”
The Supreme Court is currently on its summer recess and is scheduled to return Oct. 5.