A Federal Court of Appeals ruled Monday in a 2-to-1 decision that the Trump administration’s military ban removing current transgender members of service is unconstitutional.
In a May 2025 ruling, the Supreme Court allowed the “Hegseth policy” prohibiting members of the military from openly identifying as transgender, when a lower court attempted to stop it. The Federal Court of Appeals ruling on Monday, however, denied the Hegseth policy from removing current members of the service affected by gender dysphoria, according to ABC News.
Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, and Judge Judith Rogers, a Clinton appointee, ruled that current transgender service members cannot be removed.
“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,” Wilkins wrote in the majority opinion.
“These Plaintiff-Appellees consist both of active-duty service members and those desiring to enlist. Under the Hegseth Policy, those Plaintiff-Appellees currently serving in the military — who have been honorably serving for many years — now face expulsion,” the opinion continued. “In a similar vein, in accordance with the Hegseth Policy, those Plaintiff-Appellees desiring to enlist and who have applied for admission to the military are now excluded from accession.”
The Trump Administration’s ban on new members affected by gender dysphoria from joining the service is still in effect. In February 2025, the Department of Defense claimed that those with gender dysphoria do not have “the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.”
When asked for comment, the Department of War referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Wilkins said that the currently enlisted service members that the Hegseth policy would remove “have served honorably and pose no threat to national security, even though they happen to be transgender and have suffered from gender dysphoria.”
Wilkins claimed in the opinion that the policy “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender.”
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, was the only dissenter on the three-judge panel. Judge Walker argued in his dissenting opinion that the Judiciary branch should not have become involved, and the decision should have stayed in the Executive branch and Congress, as only they are “responsible for system-wide military judgments about the composition of the armed forces.”
“The Supreme Court has never assumed that role for itself. Neither has the D.C. Circuit,” Walker wrote in his dissenting opinion. “Not until today.”
The ruling can be appealed to the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit or to the Supreme Court, according to the Washington Examiner. The Department of Justice is likely to proceed with an appeal.
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