US court blocks Pentagon move to remove transgender troops

The Trump administration may, for now, keep transgender people from newly joining the US military, a federal appeals court ruled, while also drawing a firm line against removing those already in uniform as the legal fight continues.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the 2025 policy was unlawfully driven “by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group”.

At the same time, the court said the Pentagon retains sweeping authority to decide who can enlist, allowing the military to continue barring transgender recruits while a lawsuit brought by transgender service members and prospective enlistees moves forward.

“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, who was appointed by Democratic president Barack Obama.

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 fight 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 ruling leaves in place part of a 2025 decision by a federal judge in Washington, DC, who had blocked the entire policy from taking effect while the case was being litigated.

That judge found the policy amounted to sex discrimination and likely ran afoul of the US Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

In a January 2025 executive order, Mr Trump said adopting a transgender identity “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honourable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle”.

Mr Hegseth moved quickly to carry out Mr Trump’s order, setting off a new wave of court challenges.

The military policy sits within a broader push by the Trump administration to strip away recognition and accommodation for transgender people across American public life.

Federal agencies have withdrawn lawsuits brought on behalf of transgender workers, scrapped settlements benefiting transgender students and opened investigations into hospitals and doctors who provide gender-affirming treatment to minors.

Read More: US to remove transgender troops from military, memo shows

The military has about 1.3 million active-duty personnel, according to Department of Defense data.

Advocates for transgender rights say as many as 15,000 transgender people serve in the armed forces, though officials have put the figure in the low thousands.

In May 2025, the US Supreme Court allowed the policy to take effect, lifting a judge’s order in a separate case from Washington state that had temporarily blocked the ban.

But the Supreme Court offered no explanation for its decision and may have acted on a technical basis rather than on the substance of the dispute, Judge Wilkins wrote for the DC Circuit.