A federal appeals court has ruled that the Trump administration illegally discriminated against transgender service members by banning them from serving in the U.S. military.
The 2-1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the Pentagon’s prohibition on transgender service members — adopted to comply with a January 2025 executive order issued by President Donald Trump — was designed to exclude people from military service based on their gender identity.
Trump’s executive order stated that the identity of transgender service members conflicts with service members’ “commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” and asserted — despite past analyses finding otherwise — that the inclusion of such individuals in the military harms unit cohesion and military readiness.
Subsequently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy presumptively disqualifying transgender people from serving and ordering them to leave by a specified date or risk being forcibly discharged and losing benefits, including pension and health care coverage.
Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins wrote that the Trump administration’s policy regarding transgender service members appears to be driven by hostility toward the transgender community — a conclusion previously reached by a federal judge who blocked the ban from taking effect after finding it was “soaked in animus” toward transgender people and likely unconstitutional.
“In this litigation, the government has not attempted to defend or provide any factual basis for these disparaging characterizations of American citizens,” Wilkins wrote in a June 1 opinion. “[T]he record shows that the purpose of the Hegseth Policy is to target applicants and servicemembers who express what the Administration believes is a ‘false gender identity,’ and the policy goes far beyond disqualifying persons currently or recently suffering from gender dysphoria. Some of those disqualifications are completely unexplained and have no reasonable justification.”
Wilkins also contrasted the administration’s current policy with a similar ban imposed during Trump’s first term that was less restrictive and allowed some service members to remain in the military as long as they did not pursue medical transition. He added that the current ban “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender.”
The appeals court’s decision keeps the ban partially in effect but prevents the Pentagon from forcibly discharging current transgender service members who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. However, it does not allow transgender recruits seeking to join the military to enlist in the Armed Forces.
The court stayed its decision in anticipation that the Trump administration will seek either a rehearing before the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals or review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Circuit Judge Judith Rogers, who joined Wilkins’ majority opinion in part, also wrote a partial dissent in which she said she would have allowed the transgender recruits named in the lawsuit to enlist.
Meanwhile, dissenting Judge Justin Walker argued that courts lack the authority to second-guess the Trump administration’s actions, leaving it to Congress and the president to determine whether transgender individuals should be permitted to serve.
The Pentagon did not respond to the ruling, but Hegseth posted a brief message on social media — “See you at SCOTUS” — indicating that the administration intends to appeal.
In a separate lawsuit challenging the ban, transgender service members initially prevailed, but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked that ruling and allowed the Pentagon to move forward with its discharge plans.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a new rule that would allow federally funded shelters and temporary housing providers to discriminate based on gender.
Under the proposal, homeless shelters and other housing providers could bar transgender people from single-sex facilities that do not match their assigned sex at birth.
The rule removes all references to "gender" and "gender identity" from HUD regulations, replacing them with "sex," as defined by an executive order issued by President Donald Trump last year. The order states that federal agencies will recognize only a person's assigned sex at birth on government-issued documents and for purposes of accessing government services or housing options.
David Green, the founder of the conservative Christian retailer Hobby Lobby, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Them Before Us, an anti-LGBTQ organization behind the Greater Than Campaign, a national effort seeking to overturn the Supreme Court's marriage equality ruling.
Them Before Us, the lead organization behind the Greater Than campaign, was founded in 2018. It advocates against marriage rights for LGBTQ couples based on the presumption that being raised by same-sex parents is harmful to children.
IRS reports show that, for its first few years, Them Before Us had less than $50,000 in revenue. But after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a national right to abortion, the group's revenue surged. In 2022, it received $200,000, growing to nearly $1 million in 2024, with founder and president Katy Faust collecting a salary of $135,000.
Indiana State Sen. J.D. Ford (D-Carmel) won the Democratic nomination for Indiana's 5th Congressional District in the May 5 primary election.
Ford, the first openly gay person elected to the Indiana General Assembly, will face Republican U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz in the general election. In 2019, he proposed a bill to protect minors from conversion therapy. A year later, he introduced legislation to prohibit schools that discriminate against LGBTQ people or other protected groups from receiving taxpayer-funded school vouchers.
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