Alternet reports that a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. on Monday 1st June blocked the Trump administration from firing transgender service members from the U.S. military. The 2-1 ruling called the policy “arbitrary” and fuelled by the administration’s “animus” toward trans people.

Judge Robert Wilkins, writing for the court, said some of the disqualifications were “completely unexplained” and had “no reasonable justification.” The policy, he wrote, was driven by a “bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group.”

The court upheld a previous ruling from March 2025, which found that the move to kick trans people out of the military was "demeaning". Over twenty trans people united to take the Trump administration to court, arguing that the attempt to rid the military of trans people was a violation of the fourteenth amendment.

The judges on the panel noted they could not “ignore the disparaging statements repeatedly made by the decisionmakers.”