The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to issue a ruling on President Donald Trump’s transgender military ban which he originally proposed via tweet in 2017.
The ban would disqualify any “transgender persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria—individuals who the policies state may require substantial medical treatment” from military service with the exception of some in “limited circumstances.”
This is a shift from the regular operation of Supreme Court cases. Under most circumstances, the court prefers to address a case after it has made its way through the lower courts.
This becomes the fourth case that the Trump administration has attempted to push directly to the Supreme Court for judgment, bypassing lower courts which have previously blocked some of its controversial orders, like in the case of the travel ban. With the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court now has a conservative majority.
District Courts across the country had previously blocked the policy. On Friday, Solicitor General Noel Francisco filed the petitions to bring the case directly before the Supreme Court, claiming the lower courts blocking the policy are “wrong” and require immediate review, CNN reported.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) issued a statement on Saturday condemning the Trump administration’s move.
“This bigoted ban weakens our military readiness and our country, and shows this president’s stunning lack of loyalty to those who risk all to defend our freedoms,” the statement reads. “We will continue to fight this discriminatory action, which has no place in our country. House Democrats will never allow hate and prejudice to dictate our national security.”
The push for the Supreme Court to hear the case comes just a month after a memo proposing to determine gender by sex assigned at birth from the Department of Health and Human Services leaked.
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