A legal fight over transgender military service took a new turn as a federal appeals court said President Donald Trump’s administration may, for now, keep transgender people from enlisting — but cannot force out those already serving while the case moves forward.
In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded the 2025 policy was unlawfully driven “by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group”.
Even so, the court emphasized the Pentagon’s sweeping authority to set enlistment standards, allowing the government to continue barring transgender people from newly entering the armed forces until a lawsuit brought by transgender service members and prospective recruits is resolved.
“It appears to us to be a much greater hardship to end a military career than to delay the start of one,” wrote Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, an appointee of Democratic president Barack Obama.
In dissent, Circuit Judge Justin Walker — a Trump appointee — argued that courts should not second-guess military judgments. He said courts “have neither the expertise nor the authority to decide whether the military can exclude the plaintiffs from its ranks”.
Jennifer Levi of LGBTQ rights group GLAD Law, who represents the plaintiffs, welcomed the ruling.
“This decisive ruling confirms that the Trump Administration has no legitimate basis to discharge transgender service members who have met every demanding standard and proven, time and again, their fitness and dedication to serve,” Ms Levi said in a statement.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signaled the administration would take the battle to the nation’s highest court.
“See you at SCOTUS,” Mr Hegseth wrote on X in response to a Fox News reporter’s post about the decision.
Pete Hegseth said the decision would be appealed
The decision leaves in place part of a 2025 ruling by a federal judge in Washington, DC, who had blocked the policy from taking effect in full while further litigation unfolded.
That judge said the policy amounted to sex discrimination and was likely inconsistent with the US Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
Mr Trump set the policy in motion with a January 2025 executive order, stating that adopting a transgender identity “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honourable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle”.
Mr Hegseth moved quickly to implement the order, triggering the legal challenges now before the courts.
The military ban has been framed as one element of a wider campaign by the Trump administration to roll back recognition and accommodation of transgender people across American life.
Among other steps, federal agencies have dropped lawsuits filed on behalf of transgender workers, ended settlements that benefited transgender students and opened investigations into hospitals and doctors who provide gender-affirming treatment to minors.
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According to Department of Defense data, the US military has about 1.3 million active-duty personnel.
Transgender rights advocates estimate there may be as many as 15,000 transgender service members, while officials put the figure in the low thousands.
The legal landscape shifted in May 2025, when the US Supreme Court allowed the policy to take effect by lifting a temporary block ordered by a judge in a separate case from the state of Washington.
Judge Wilkins noted that the Supreme Court did not explain its reasoning, suggesting it may have turned on a technical issue rather than a decision on the underlying merits.
