(WASHINGTON) — Calling it a matter of “exceptional importance,” the Trump administration has filed an urgent appeal with the Supreme Court seeking the immediate removal of 29 active-duty service members who are transgender even before their case challenging the Pentagon ban goes to trial in January.
Several courts have found that the ban was likely rooted in animus and violates servicemembers constitutional rights to due process and equal protection – a conclusion the government strongly disputes.
While the justices last year gave Trump the green light to move forward broadly with a ban on service members who have a history of gender dysphoria, federal judges in a separate case, U.S. v. Talbott, last June blocked the military from discharging more than two dozen individual plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit challenging the policy.
Solicitor General John Sauer called the ruling allowing those plaintiffs to remain in their positions “gravely erroneous.”
“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 in the government’s petition. “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. The Court should thus take this opportunity to address the constitutionality of the [Department of Defense Secretary] Hegseth policy and reverse the decision below, whose reasoning cannot be squared with this Court’s precedents or deference to the military.”
The justices will consider this fall whether to hear the case at this early stage, before any final ruling on the merits by a lower court.
In the meantime, the 29 plaintiffs – who are active-duty, reservists, National Guard members and a person seeking to enlist – will remain in the force.
“As the Trump administration’s own attorneys admitted, these are qualified individuals who are meeting all military standards,” said Jennifer Levi, an attorney representing the transgender service members with the LGBTQ legal advocacy group GLAD Law. “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.”
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