Joe Biden let the Pentagon run gender experiments on the military for four years.
Now a pair of Obama and Clinton judges think they outrank the Commander in Chief.
And Donald Trump just asked the Supreme Court to end the transgender military circus once and for all.
The Judges Who Think They Command the Military
Two Democrat-appointed judges on the D.C. Circuit – one picked by Obama, one by Clinton – ruled in June that Pete Hegseth can't discharge the transgender troops currently serving under an injunction.
That ruling declared the Hegseth policy was likely driven by "hostility" rather than military necessity.
The Trump-appointed dissenter on that same panel said it plainly: the Constitution assigns authority over military service to Congress and the Commander in Chief – not to federal judges.
The Trump-appointed judge was right.
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Solicitor General John Sauer called the majority ruling "gravely erroneous" and filed a petition for certiorari on August 28.
He argued the policy doesn't discriminate against transgender people – it disqualifies individuals with gender dysphoria, a medical condition that affects deployability and readiness.
The government isn't required to build a perfect case when it comes to military standards. It only has to show a reasonable connection to readiness – and that bar is obvious.
Why SCOTUS Already Answered This Once
This isn't new territory for the justices.
In May 2025, the Supreme Court's conservative majority already paused a separate injunction – a Washington state judge's order blocking the broader ban across the entire military.
That ruling cleared the way for the Pentagon to implement the policy and begin separating trans-identifying service members who hadn't voluntarily left.
The D.C. Circuit's June 2026 ruling in Talbott v. United States reopened a hole the Supreme Court had already sealed – protecting a group of individual plaintiffs from discharge while their case heads toward a January 2027 trial.
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White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales put it directly: "Joe Biden allowed trans insanity to run rampant in our military. President Trump restored lethality and readiness to our warfighters."
Hegseth delivered his own response on social media after the June ruling – two words: "See you at SCOTUS."
The Democrats Built This Mess Deliberately
Obama opened transgender service in 2016 as a policy change with no congressional authorization.
Biden reversed Trump's 2019 ban on his first day back in office in 2021.
Trump reversed Biden on January 20, 2025 – before he'd even finished the inaugural address.
The cycle isn't accidental. Democrats built the trans military policy as a legal booby trap – a chain of executive orders designed to generate litigation that activist judges could then use to hamstring a Republican president's command authority.
The Talbott case was filed by the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and GLAD Law before the ink on Trump's executive order was dry.
Their lawyers are now arguing there's no reason for SCOTUS to take the case.
That's lawyer-speak for: we got a friendly panel and we want to run out the clock until 2027.
Four justices need to agree to hear it – and this time, they're being asked to answer the constitutional question directly, not just pause an injunction.
The Real Fight Is Over Who Commands America's Military
Here's what nobody in the media will say straight: this case is about whether two Democrat judges or the elected Commander in Chief get to decide who wears the uniform.
The Constitution is not ambiguous on this.
Congress sets military standards.
The President commands.
Federal district judges in Washington, D.C. don't appear anywhere in that chain.
That's not a legal technicality.
That's the whole point.
Trump built a 6-3 court.
He appointed the dissenting judge who got it right in June.
And now he's asking those justices to end the legal merry-go-round before Democrats can use the courtroom to nullify two consecutive election mandates on this exact question.
A court that already said yes once is about to get asked again – and this time, there's no off-ramp.
Sources:
- Amy Howe, "Trump administration asks Supreme Court to consider ban on transgender persons in the military," SCOTUSblog, August 28, 2026.
- "Trump Administration Seeks SCOTUS Weigh-In on Enforcing Its Ban on Transgenders in the Military," RedState, August 29, 2026.
- "Trump asks Supreme Court to allow immediate firing of 29 transgender military service members," ABC Audio, August 31, 2026.
- "Supreme Court allows Trump to ban transgender people from military," SCOTUSblog, May 6, 2025.
- Shawn Fleetwood, "Trump Admin Asks SCOTUS To Weigh Military Restrictions On 'Trans' Troops," The Federalist, August 31, 2026.