Appeals Court Upholds Pentagon’s Rejection of Transgenderism

A divided Washington, DC, federal appeals court upheld the Trump Pentagon’s policy, which rejected military service for individuals who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a 2-1 decision, finding that a decision earlier this year, from Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, “overrode military judgement and applied a standard of review the courts are not entitled to use when second-guessing force-readiness decisions,” the Washington Examiner reported.

Breitbart News reported in March that Reyes “granted a preliminary injunction for the implementation” of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s policy preventing transgender individuals from being able to serve in the United States military “without a waiver.”

“KATSAS, Circuit Judge, joined by RAO, Circuit Judge: The United States military enforces strict medical standards to ensure that only physically and mentally fit individuals join its ranks,” Judge Gregory Katsas and Judge Neomi Rao said in the majority opinion. “For decades, these requirements barred service by individuals with gender dysphoria, a medical condition associated with clinically significant distress. This bar was partially relaxed in 2016, revived in 2018, partially relaxed again in 2021, and revived again in 2025.”

Judges Katsas and Rao continued to note that Hegseth “concluded” that the 2025 policy that bans individuals with gender dysphoria from serving in the U.S. Military “would advance important military interest of combat readiness, unit cohesion, and cost control.”

“In doing so, he consulted materials compiled to assess the 2016 and 2018 policy changes, as well as more recent studies regarding the impacts of gender dysphoria on those with the condition and on their military service,” the judges continued. “The district court nonetheless preliminarily enjoined the 2025 policy based on its own contrary assessment of the evidence. In our view, the court afforded insufficient deference to the Secretary’s considered judgement. Accordingly, we stay the preliminary injunction pending the government’s appeal.”

Per the Washington Examiner, in the majority opinion, Judge Katsas “wrote that the Pentagon offered more than enough justification for the restrictions, pointing to long-standing medical-fitness rules,” among other things. Judge Reyes’s ruling that the Trump administration’s policy “was rooted in animus toward transgender people”:

In the lengthy opinion, Katsas wrote that the Pentagon offered more than enough justification for the restrictions, pointing to long-standing medical-fitness rules, the Mattis-era review of gender dysphoria, a 2021 Department of War study showing substantial nondeployability following diagnosis, and a 2025 literature review finding limited evidence that common treatments improve readiness. The majority said Reyes, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, “afforded insufficient deference” to military leaders and replaced their judgement with her own.

The panel also rejected Reyes’s finding that the policy was rooted in animus toward transgender people. The opinion stressed that courts must assess the policy on its face and the materials supporting it, not political statements made elsewhere, and noted that the Supreme Court already allowed the same ban to take effect in May in a parallel case from Washington state.

In January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that barred transgender-identifying individuals from enlisting or serving in the U.S. Military, noting that the “Armed Forces must adhere to high mental and physical health standards to ensure our military can deploy, fight, and win.”

“For the sake of our Nation and the patriotic Americans who volunteer to serve it, military service must be reserved for those mentally and physically fit for duty,” the executive order says. “The Armed Forces must adhere to high mental and physical health standards to ensure our military can deploy, fight, and win, including in austere conditions and without the benefit of routine medical treatment or special provisions.”