The US Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to go ahead with its plan to restrict military service by transgender people while court challenges continue.
America’s most senior court Tuesday reversed lower-court orders preventing the Pentagon from implementing its plans.
Military policy had barred service by transgender people until President Barack Obama’s administration began allowing transgender people already in the military to serve openly and set a date when transgender people would be allowed to enlist.
President Donald Trump’s administration has revisited those policies. The Trump administration has sought to generally restrict service by transgender people to only those who don’t seek to undergo gender transitions.
The court’s decision will allow the policy to move forward while it is reviewed by lower courts until it works its way up to merit a Supreme Court decision
Supreme Court Justices did not review the new policy’s legality, despite the Trump administrations request that they do so.
The request was submitted in November by Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who requested a Supreme Court review on the decision before until the appeals courts had even ruled on the issue.
He urged justices to take the case, and said that the lower court’s decision to block the transgender military ban stopped a policy that’s ‘necessary to place the Department of Defense in the strongest position to protect the American people.’
The justices generally wait for appeals courts to consider a case before they decide to review it.
It takes four of nine justices to agree to hear a case and five to agree to stay a lower court’s ruling.
The ruling was not a final decision on the merits of the policy and some transgender people will continue to serve.
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis issued the policy in February 2018, which disqualified anyone who has transitioned or seeks to transition in the future. It also includes anyone with a history of gender dysphoria.
The policy includes exemptions for active-duty members of the military that are already serving and those willing to serve in accordance to the sex they were assigned to at birth.
Source: Metro UK
