The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration Thursday asked the Supreme Court to let it start enforcing a ban on transgender troops serving in the military that has been blocked by lower courts.

The administration’s emergency application was the latest in a series of requests asking the justices to pause decisions by trial judges that prevent it from moving forward with the blitz of executive orders President Donald Trump has signed.

The new case concerns an order issued on the first day of Trump’s second term. It revoked an executive order from President Joe Biden that had let transgender service members serve openly.

A week later, Trump issued a second order saying that expressing what it called a false “gender identity” conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an “honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” and that requiring others to recognize a “falsehood is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

In February, the Defense Department implemented Trump’s order, issuing a new policy requiring all transgender troops to be forced out of the military. According to the Defense Department, about 4,200 current service members, or about 0.2% of the military, are transgender.

Service members sued to block the policy, saying it ran afoul of the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

In March, Judge Benjamin H. Settle, of the U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Wash., agreed, issuing a nationwide injunction blocking the ban.

The government had failed to show that the ban “is substantially related to achieving unit cohesion, good order or discipline,” wrote Settle, who was appointed by President George W. Bush. “Although the court gives deference to military decision making, it would be an abdication to ignore the government’s flat failure to address plaintiffs’ uncontroverted evidence that years of open transgender service promoted these objectives.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block Settle’s ruling while it considered the administration’s appeal.

The administration then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court.

At a minimum, the government’s application said, the Supreme Court should limit Settle’s ruling to the plaintiffs in the case and lift the balance of the nationwide injunction.

The court told the plaintiffs to file their brief opposing the ban May 1, and the justices will probably rule on the government’s application not long after.

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