The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to enforce a ban on transgender-identifying individuals in the military, pausing an order by a lower court that had blocked the new Department of Defense rule from going into effect.
At issue was a Department of Defense rule that reversed a Biden administration policy allowing trans-identifying persons to serve. That Biden rule had overturned a policy in Trump’s first term that largely prohibited such individuals in the military. The Obama administration was the first to issue guidance permitting individuals who identify as the opposite sex to serve, although that policy did not go fully into effect before he left office.
The Supreme Court’s order broke down along ideological lines, with the court’s liberal bloc — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — stating they would have allowed the lower court order to stand. The court’s conservative bloc — Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — sided with the Trump administration.
The Feb. 26 DOD memo stated that “individuals who…
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