President Donald Trump (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
WASHINGTON | President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops came under scrutiny again in federal court Jan. 22 — this time before a three-judge appeals panel considering the merits of the president’s executive order.
The policy has been challenged in two major federal cases, one of which the administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s emergency docket. In May, the justices allowed the ban to go into effect while the lawsuits continue in the lower courts.
For just over three hours at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, judges pressed the Trump administration and the lawyer for the plaintiffs in Talbott v. Trump for clarity on the ban instituted just under one year ago.
The panel was made up of Judges Judith W. Rogers, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994; Robert L. Wilkins, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014; and Justin R. Walker, a 2019 Trump appointee.
U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli, arguing for the administration, told the judges the ban in question rests on the findings and policy of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
“The Mattis report does provide the rationale,” Kambli said, when pressed by Wilkins on why “people who’ve been in (service) for years, with Bronze Stars and commendations” are swept up in the policy.
“What we have here is an area of medicine, which we can all agree there’s uncertainty over,” Kambli argued.
Mattis, who served during Trump’s first term, disqualified transgender service members from the military, except in very narrow circumstances.
A February 2022 Defense Department report concluded that transgender service members, even members who are not suffering a gender dysphoria diagnosis, “could undermine readiness, disrupt unit cohesion, and impose an unreasonable burden on the military.”
Kambli, moments later, added the courts are “ill equipped” to decide the issue and should show deference to the military.
But Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said Kambli and the Trump administration ignored new information revealed after President Joe Biden reversed the Mattis ban and allowed transgender troops to serve openly.
Minter, who argued in court for the plaintiffs, said there was “zero evidence of any problems. … That is part of the record now.”
“So for someone to come in and just go back to keeping people out … this is based on animus,” Minter said.
The government “has to show there is a legitimate purpose,” Minter said.
Process for discharging trans troops debated
Kambli told the judges that “so far no one has been discharged” and the policy is still “in progress.”
The transgender service members would be informed via letter of an honorable discharge, and would have the opportunity to go before a three-officer administrative discharge panel, he said.
The special panel process is usually reserved for members who’ve served six or more years, but the military will make an exception for trans members with less than six years of service, Kambli added.
In an animated exchange, Rogers pressed back: “The end result is predetermined. It’s a meaningless process. It’s just moving paper around.”
Jennifer Levi, senior director for GLAD Law, one of the organizations representing the roughly 30 plaintiffs, told States Newsroom after the arguments that trans members have already been “forced out” through a voluntary process.
“This was an important hearing, and the plaintiffs in this case are all meeting military standards and reflect some of the highest ideals of this country. They’ve committed their lives to service, and the military has conceded that they have been able to contribute and meet all of the rigorous standards for service,” Levi said.
“This hearing brought out just how devastating and harmful it is to purge a group of people who have been contributing and putting their lives on the line in service of the country.”
The Pentagon declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.
Trump order
Trump signed the order on Jan. 27, 2025, asserting the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
Further, the order said that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Eight active-duty service members and transgender individuals who are actively pursuing enlistment in the armed forces initially brought the case against Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among other officials and three branches of the U.S. military. The number of plaintiffs has since grown.
U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Ana Reyes granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction in mid-March, criticizing the administration in her 79-page opinion for a lack of data proving the claims in Trump’s order.
“Transgender persons have served openly since 2021, but Defendants have not analyzed their service. That is unfortunate. Plaintiffs’ service records alone are Exhibit A for the proposition that transgender persons can have the warrior ethos, physical and mental health, selflessness, honor, integrity, and discipline to ensure military excellence,” Reyes wrote.
Administration officials swiftly appealed the case to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Oral arguments were heard April 22 before Judges Cornelia Pillard, appointed during Obama’s second term, and Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, both appointed during Trump’s first term.
On Dec. 9, the three judges issued a 2-1 decision staying the lower court’s preliminary injunction, with Katsas and Rao writing the Hegseth policy “likely does not violate equal protection.”
Pillard issued a blistering dissent, asserting the ban “brands all transgender people, without regard to individual merit, as unworthy to serve in our armed forces solely because they are transgender.”
In a separate case, Shilling, et al v. Trump, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 18 upheld a lower court’s ruling that allowed transgender troops to continue serving, denying the government’s appeal.
In May, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Trump to ban transgender people from the military.
This story is courtesy of Florida Phoenix.
Florida Phoenix is a nonprofit news site, free of advertising and free to readers, covering state government and politics with a staff of five journalists located at the Florida Press Center in downtown Tallahassee. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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