Federal appeals court rules that Trump’s trans military ban appears discriminatory

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., said Monday that the Trump administration’s transgender military policy appears motivated by "the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group," delivering some of the strongest appellate criticism yet of a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s campaign against transgender rights.Writing for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Robert Wilkins concluded that key portions of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's policy likely violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection because they appear rooted in hostility toward transgender people rather than legitimate military concerns."The sharp contrast to the Mattis Policy ... appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender," wrote Wilkins, an appointee of former President Barack Obama."As such, at this preliminary stage, I conclude that the Hegseth Policy is both arbitrary and based upon animus."The remarks came in a fractured ruling that partially upheld and partially narrowed an injunction against the policy. The court preserved protections for the named transgender plaintiffs currently serving in the military while allowing enforcement of portions of the policy affecting prospective recruits.But the most striking aspect of the 107-page opinion was Wilkins' repeated focus on what he described as evidence that the administration's policy targets transgender identity itself.The judge opened his opinion by recounting language used by Trump and Hegseth to justify the policy.In January 2025, Trump declared that people "expressing a false 'gender identity' divergent from an individual's sex" could not satisfy the standards required for military service. Hegseth later asserted that people with gender dysphoria lacked the "honesty, humility, and integrity" required of service members.Wilkins noted that the government offered no evidence supporting those claims."In this l