A federal appeals court on Monday issued a mixed decision over the Trump administration’s 2025 policy restricting transgender people from military service, allowing the Department of Defense to keep transgender individuals from joining the armed forces for now while blocking the expulsion of currently serving transgender members as litigation proceeds.
In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the 2025 policy was unlawfully motivated "by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group." At the same time, the court emphasized the broad discretion the Pentagon holds to set enlistment criteria and said it could maintain a ban on new transgender enlistees pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by transgender current and prospective service members.
Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, wrote for the majority that "It appears to us to be a much greater hardship to end a military career than to delay the start of one." That language underpinned the panel’s decision to protect those already serving from immediate removal while allowing the enlistment bar to stand.
In a dissent, Circuit Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, argued that courts should not make determinations about military personnel policies: courts "have neither the expertise nor the authority to decide whether the military can exclude the plaintiffs from its ranks," he wrote.
Jennifer Levi of GLAD Law, who represents the plaintiffs, praised the ruling in a statement. "This decisive ruling confirms that the Trump Administration has no legitimate basis to discharge transgender service members who have met every demanding standard and proven, time and again, their fitness and dedication to serve," she said.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The appeals court decision partially upholds an earlier ruling from a Washington, D.C.-based federal district judge that had blocked implementation of the entire policy pending further litigation. That judge had found the policy amounted to sex discrimination and likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January 2025 stating that adopting a transgender identity "conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle." Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth moved to implement that executive order soon after, which prompted the legal challenges now before the D.C. Circuit.
The appeals court ruling sits against a backdrop of broader administrative actions affecting transgender recognition and accommodation across federal agencies. According to the record in this litigation, federal agencies have dropped lawsuits filed on behalf of transgender workers, ended settlements benefiting transgender students and launched investigations into hospitals and doctors for providing gender-affirming treatment to minors.
The military comprises about 1.3 million active-duty personnel, per Department of Defense figures. Estimates of how many transgender service members serve vary: transgender rights advocates put the figure as high as 15,000, while officials describe the number as being in the low thousands.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2025 allowed the policy to be implemented by lifting a judge’s ruling in a separate case originating in the state of Washington. The Supreme Court did not provide an explanation for that action. Judge Wilkins noted in the D.C. Circuit’s opinion that the Supreme Court "may have been ruling on a technicality rather than the merits of the case."
The litigation challenging the 2025 policy continues. For now, the practical effect of the appeals court decision is a split outcome: individuals who have already built military careers are shielded from immediate discharge, while those who seek to enlist and identify as transgender remain barred from joining until the courts resolve the underlying constitutional and statutory questions.