US court blocks Pentagon from removing transgender troops from military

The Trump administration can, for now, keep transgender people from joining the US military, a federal appeals court has ruled, while stopping the government from 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”.

Still, the court said the Pentagon holds sweeping authority to decide who may enlist, allowing the military to continue blocking new transgender recruits while a lawsuit brought by transgender service members and applicants 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, which 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 Supreme Court.

“See you at SCOTUS,” Mr Hegseth wrote on X in response to a Fox News reporter’s post about the decision.

Pete Hegseth signaled the administration would challenge the ruling

The decision leaves in place part of a 2025 ruling from a federal judge in Washington, DC, who had barred the policy in full while the case proceeded.

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

In a January 2025 executive order, Mr Trump said embracing 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 series of legal challenges.

The military policy is one piece of a wider push by the Trump administration to roll back recognition and accommodation of transgender people across American public life.

Federal agencies have withdrawn lawsuits brought on behalf of transgender workers, ended settlements that had benefited transgender students and opened investigations into hospitals and doctors providing gender-affirming treatment to minors.

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

The US 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 ranks, 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 temporary block in a separate case from Washington state.

But Judge Wilkins wrote for the DC Circuit that the high court gave no explanation for its decision and may have acted on a technical issue rather than on the underlying merits of the case.