WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — A federal court has ruled that a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s transgender military ban may proceed as a class action suit, potentially opening the door for all gender-confused individuals to remain in America’s armed forces.
The ban was originally instituted under the first Trump administration, after then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis led a review that concluded, based on “extensive study by senior uniformed and civilian leaders, including combat veterans,” that troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria presented “considerable risk to military effectiveness and lethality.”
The Biden administration reversed the ban, and the second Trump administration reinstated it in February 2025 under current Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. An activist federal judge blocked it a month later, which the U.S. Supreme Court reversed in May 2025 while allowing the legal arguments to continue.
Last month, Judge Robert Wilkins ruled that the policy was “both arbitrary and based upon animus, and for those reasons the Policy violates Plaintiff-Appellees’ constitutional right to equal protection of the law.” The decision blocked the administration from removing the specific plaintiffs in that particular suit, but allowed the military to continue rejecting new recruits afflicted with the condition.
On June 30, however, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a motion to certify another challenge to the policy as a class action lawsuit, the Military Times reports. If successful, it would extend to all 4,240 gender-dysphoric individuals currently estimated to be in the military, as well as to future recruits.
“The protection afforded to our plaintiffs should be available to all transgender servicemembers and their families,” declared National Center for LGBTQ Rights legal director Shannon Minter. “We know that this ban is discriminatory, rooted in animus, and irrationally excludes highly decorated servicemembers who have deployed around the world and given everything to our country.”
The Trump administration is expected to appeal; Hegseth previously said simply “see you at SCOTUS” in response to last month’s decision.
In defense of excluding gender-confused individuals from the armed forces, Heritage Foundation defense expert and retired lieutenant general Tom Spoehr has written that “exhaustive Defense Department clinical and U.S. survey data confirms that individuals with gender dysphoria attempt suicide at rates between eight and 10 times the average” and “severe anxiety again at between eight and nine times the rate of individuals without” and that “there is no evidence that medical treatment, including gender-reassignment surgery, can remedy those challenges.”
“Stress, anxiety, and suicide are already existential military problems. Indeed, the suicide rate for active-duty military members has been slowly rising over the past couple of decades,” he explains. “It would, therefore, be reckless and ill-advised to allow individuals demonstrably at a higher risk of suicide and anxiety to join the military and be subject to the increased stresses of military duty — both for the readiness of their units and for the safety of the individual.”