Activist judges overruled: Trump judges greenlight Hegseth’s ban on military 'dudes in dresses'

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes — a foreign-born, Biden-appointed, lesbian judge who previously worked as a lawyer to fight the first Trump administration's immigration policy — decided in March to indefinitely block the enforcement of the second Trump administration's ban on transvestites in the military, suggesting it likely violated their constitutional rights.

Reyes, formerly of the Feminist Majority Foundation, suggested in her March 18 ruling that the "Military Ban is soaked in animus" and that it was her responsibility as a judge to keep the executive branch at heel, despite acknowledging the "pernicious" nature of judicial overreach.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed the administration a big win: a 2-1 decision staying Reyes' order and greenlighting enforcement of the ban.

'We're done with that s**t.'

Citing the Supreme Court's June 6-3 ruling in United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld Tennessee's ban on sex-rejecting genital mutilations and sterilizing puberty blockers for minors, U.S. Circuit Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao — both appointed by President Donald Trump — ruled that War Secretary Pete Hegseth's ban on trans-identifying military members likely did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause or trigger any form of heightened scrutiny.

"In Skrmetti, the Supreme Court held that a law prohibiting the use of hormones to treat gender dysphoria in minors 'classifies on the basis of medical use' and thus does not discriminate based on either sex or transgender status," Katsas wrote for the majority. "The same reasoning would seem to cover the Hegseth Policy, which classifies based on the medical condition of gender dysphoria."

Even if the policy contained a classification triggering some form of heightened scrutiny, Katsas emphasized that "decades of precedent establish that the judiciary must tread carefully when asked to second-guess considered military judgments of the political branches."

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Photo by Daniel Knighton/Getty Images

Katsas noted further that the policy was "likely constitutional because it reflects a considered judgment of military leaders and furthers legitimate military interests," such as cost issues, unit cohesion, and military readiness.

Trump noted in his Jan. 27 executive order titled "Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness":

Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false "gender identity" divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.

The Pentagon subsequently released guidance stating that "military service by Service members and applicants for military service who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria is incompatible with military service," and took steps to begin giving those with gender dysphoria the boot.

Katsas suggested that Reyes' claim that the Pentagon's policy did not advance legitimate interests was more or less baseless — that she:

• "gave no sound reason for overriding the Secretary's considered judgment";
• premised her claim that "medical studies now overwhelmingly conclude that gender dysphoria is highly treatable" on a "declaration from one doctor who simply stated, in one sentence and without citations, that 'gender dysphoria is highly treatable'"; and
• "downplayed evidence of greater mental-health issues faced by transgender individuals."

The dissenting judge on the panel, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, lashed out at her colleagues, claiming in a 27-page dissent — which reads like a work of LGBT activist literature — that the majority's decision "makes it all but inevitable that thousands of qualified servicemembers will lose careers they have built over decades, drawn up short by a policy that would repay their commitment and service to our nation with detriment and derision."

"The majority grants this stay in the face of all evidence to the contrary," continued U.S. Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard. "We should not accord deference to the military when the Department itself carelessly relied on no more than blatant animus."

According to Pillard, the Pentagon's decision to oust gender-dysphoric individuals from the military was "based on nothing more than negative attitudes about transgender identity."

She also clutched pearls about various comments from elements of the Trump administration, including War Secretary Pete Hegseth's May 6 remarks stating, "No more dudes in dresses; we're done with that s**t."

"Because the Hegseth Policy is openly fueled by animus towards transgender people and defendants have not shown that it is based on military considerations, it fails even the most deferential form of equal protection review," wrote Pillard.

Following the appellate court's ruling, Hegseth shared a cartoon to social media depicting him kicking a bearded man in a dress out of the Department of War. The transvestite depicted in the cartoon is holding a box containing a book titled "DEI Military" and an LGBT flag.

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