Supreme Court permits temporary restrictions on transgender soldiers

5 to 4 decision, as you might expect:

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will allow President Donald Trump to temporarily enforce restrictions on transgender individuals serving in the military.

As is typical of orders of this nature, the Court gave no reason for its decision, though Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan noted their dissent.

The Trump administration first petitioned the Supreme Court to decide directly on the legality of the trans-soldiers ban, after federal trial judges in California, Washington, D.C., and Washington state issued orders prohibiting its enforcement. The plaintiffs in those lawsuits argue the policy violates a range of constitutional rights including the First Amendment, equal protection, and due process.

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The case will now return to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for further proceedings. Should the administration lose before the 9th Circuit, they can return to the Supreme Court for a definitive ruling on the legality of its restrictions on transgender soldiers.

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That memo provides that individuals with a history of gender dysphoria — a clinical term referring to anxiety triggered by the conflict between one’s biological sex and the gender with which they identify — may enlist provided they are willing to serve in their biological sex and have not suffered gender dysphoria for a continuous three-year period prior to recruitment. Active personnel who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria may continue to serve provided they do so in their biological sex.

It’s not the final word, as the second to last paragraph that I quoted above indicates, but it gives us an idea on what the final word might be.