WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 on Monday to block the Trump administration from removing a group of current “transgender” soldiers on the basis of gender dysphoria, while allowing the military to continue rejecting new recruits afflicted with the condition.
The ban was originally instituted under the first Trump administration, after then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis led a review that concluded, based on “extensive study by senior uniformed and civilian leaders, including combat veterans,” that troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria presented “considerable risk to military effectiveness and lethality.”
The Biden administration reversed the ban, and the second Trump administration reinstated it in February 2025. An activist federal judge blocked it a month later, which the U.S. Supreme Court reversed in May 2025 while allowing the legal arguments to continue.
Now, ABC News reports that Judge Robert Wilkins has ruled that at “this preliminary stage, I conclude that the Hegseth Policy is both arbitrary and based upon animus, and for those reasons the Policy violates Plaintiff-Appellees’ constitutional right to equal protection of the law.”
“For those servicemembers facing expulsion, it is not clear how easily they can be reinstated and made whole,” he continued. “But even if they can be reinstated after being separated, it appears to us to be a much greater hardship to end a military career than to delay the start of one.” The ruling only applies to the handful of soldiers that brought the lawsuit.
In response, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared simply, “See you at SCOTUS,” indicating the administration’s intentions to appeal the ruling.
In defense of excluding gender-confused individuals from the armed forces, Heritage Foundation defense expert and retired lieutenant general Tom Spoehr has written that “exhaustive Defense Department clinical and U.S. survey data confirms that individuals with gender dysphoria attempt suicide at rates between eight and 10 times the average” and “severe anxiety again at between eight and nine times the rate of individuals without” and that “there is no evidence that [so-called] medical treatment, including gender-reassignment surgery, can remedy those challenges.”
“Stress, anxiety, and suicide are already existential military problems. Indeed, the suicide rate for active-duty military members has been slowly rising over the past couple of decades,” he explains. “It would, therefore, be reckless and ill-advised to allow individuals demonstrably at a higher risk of suicide and anxiety to join the military and be subject to the increased stresses of military duty — both for the readiness of their units and for the safety of the individual.”