SCOTUS allows Trump to implement transgender military ban

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed President Donald Trump to implement his ban on transgender people serving in the military.

The justices granted an emergency request from the Trump administration to lift a nationwide injunction blocking the policy while litigation continues.

The court's brief order noted that the three liberal justices dissented.

The decision is a loss for the seven individual transgender service members, led by lead plaintiff Emily Shilling, a Navy commander, who had sued to block it.

"Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a devastating blow to transgender service members who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation’s defense," Lambda Legal and Human Rights Campaign Foundation, two groups representing the plaintiffs, said in a joint statement.

The policy "has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice," the groups added.

In asking the Supreme Court to intervene, Sauer said that judges are required to show 'substantial deference" to the Defense Department's judgment on military issues.

In implementing the policy, the government relied on a Pentagon report from the first Trump term that said people with gender dysphoria are a threat to "military effectiveness and lethality."

The challengers argued in court that the ban violates the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which requires that laws apply equally to everybody, as well as other constitutional provisions.

Transgender service members have shown in recent years that they can serve just as well as anyone else, their lawyers said in court papers. Then-President Joe Biden had rolled back Trump's earlier restrictions.

"An unprecedented degree of animus towards transgender people animates and permeates the ban: it is based on the shocking proposition that transgender people do not exist," the lawyers wrote.