Supreme Court allows transgender military policy, for now

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Trump administration may immediately implement limits on transgender soldiers that President Donald Trump ordered in February 2018. In July 2017, Trump put on hold an Obama-era plan to allow transgender people to enlist in the military and to let those already serving do so as their preferred gender. Lower courts intervened and ordered the military to keep an open recruitment policy. Then in February 2018, Defense Secretary James Mattis proposed allowing transgender people to serve, but only according to their biological sex and so long as they had no history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The high court on Tuesday said that policy can take effect while the debate over transgender military service continues in the lower courts.