The U.S. military is not covered by the Supreme Court's ruling that employers cannot discriminate against transgender employees, though advocacy groups believe the decision will make it more difficult for the Trump administration to defend its policy implemented in April of 2019 that requires military members to serve in the gender assigned to them at birth.
"Today's ruling makes the military, so often a successful leader in ending discrimination in American life, an outlier amidst a national consensus that arbitrary discrimination is harmful and wrong," said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center that researches military personnel policy. "With transgender workers protected by federal law in all other sectors, the military's transgender ban is now even harder to defend."
The ruling "undermines any argument the military can make" in defending the current transgender policy, Jennifer Levi, transgender rights project director of GLAD, told Military.com.
Shannon Minter, one of the lawyers challenging Trump's transgender/military policy, told the Longview Ness-Journal the high court's decision "validates the rulings of four federal district courts that the military ban is impermissible sex discrimination."
Monday's 6-3 ruling does not affect the military because courts have consistently held Title VII does not pertain to uniformed military personnel.
The military policy essentially denies transgender service members to live openly in their preferred gender.
The Department of Justice said it had no comment on the ruling, according to WCBS 880.