Updated: Jan 14 / 2019
A U.S. appeals court granted President Donald Trump a “victory” in his objectives to ban transgender people from the U.S. armed forces, requesting a judge to reconsider her ruling against the policy, which the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to take effect.
On Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put aside a ruling by Marsha Pechman, a U.S. District Judge based in Seattle, which claimed that the ban potentially violated the constitutional rights of transgender service members and recruits.
Without ruling on the merits, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court stated that Pechman did not give the military’s judgment enough deference, and requested that she provide more.
That finding could reinforce Trump’s position, but the government still has the burden of justifying his policy.
Pechman is one of the four federal judges that has ruled against Trump’s policy toward transgender military personnel.
In January on 2019, the Supreme Court, which carries a 5-4 conservative majority, removed lower court injunctions against the policy, while also allowing legal challenges to continue.
Trump, who is a Republican, announced the transgender military ban in July of 2017 claiming that the military needed to focus on “decisive and overwhelming victory” without being “burdened” by the “tremendous medical costs and disruption” of having transgender personnel.
