By Mary Margaret Olohan | The Daily Wire
President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow the Pentagon to enforce its ban on troops who suffer from gender dysphoria or have undergone transgender medical treatments.
The Trump administration’s appeal comes after two federal judges blocked the administration from removing troops who identify as transgender, ruling that the Trump order is probably unconstitutional and motivated by discrimination rather than negative impacts on the military.
But the Defense Department’s policy is based on findings during the first Trump administration showing that individuals with gender dysphoria impact “military effectiveness and lethality,” as the appeal states.
Service members who undergo so-called transition surgeries can take a minimum of 12 months to recover, often using heavy narcotics, and during this time they are not physically capable of meeting military readiness requirements, the White House has previously said. They also require consistent medical care, which is not conducive to deployment or other readiness requirements.
Solicitor General John Sauer argues in the Trump administration appeal that, “absent a stay,” the court’s injunction will remain in place “for the duration of further review in the Ninth Circuit and in this Court—a period far too long for the military to be forced to maintain a policy that it has determined, in its professional judgment, to be contrary to military readiness and the Nation’s interests.”
“The government therefore respectfully requests a stay of the injunction in its entirety pending further review,” he added. “At minimum, this Court should stay the injunction’s universal scope, so that the injunction blocks the implementation of the 2025 policy only as to the eight individual respondents in this case.”
The Supreme Court justices instructed lawyers representing the Trump administration’s challengers to file their responses by Thursday, May 1, at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Trump’s executive order on transgender troops not only bans military members from using taxpayer dollars to get gender transition surgeries, but also prohibits males from using or sharing sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities that are designated for females.
The order rescinds President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14004, which allowed for all sorts of accommodations of gender identity in the military, and opened wide the door for gender ideology and taxpayer-funded transgender interventions within military ranks.
He also issued an executive order “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which banned individuals with gender dysphoria from entering the military. Gender dysphoria is a psychological condition wherein a man might believe he is actually a woman, or a woman might believe she is actually a man.
“Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” the order said. “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
The move stems from a desire to prioritize military readiness and lethality — both of which are seriously impacted by military members who seek transgender surgical procedures. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been vocal about his desire to reform the department towards these priorities, rather than ideology or politics.
“During the Biden Administration, the Department of Defense allowed gender insanity to pervade our military organizations, family, and culture,” a White House document on the executive order states.
“This included not only permitting the military to increase the number of individuals not physically or mentally prepared to serve, but also ordering the Department of Defense to pay for servicemembers’ transition surgeries, as well as those of their dependent children—at a cost of millions of dollars to the American taxpayer.”
It continues: “Fitness, health, welfare, and readiness standards must ensure that our military members are able to deploy, fight, and win. On the battlefield there can be no accommodation for anything less than resilience, strength, and ability to withstand extraordinary physical demands.”
First published on The Daily Wire
If this is true — we will find any way possible to stop it.
Taxpayers should NEVER pay for this lunacy.
As we stated — before a rogue judge blocked it — “service members with gender dysphoria are disqualified from military service.”
Zero readiness reasons for trans troops. https://t.co/MMzCvxbJRL
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) April 25, 2025
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