Photo by Joel Rivera-Camacho

The Freedom From Religion Foundation welcomes a federal appeals court decision calling the Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops illegal for targeting service members based on their gender identity.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled this week that the Pentagon policy appears designed to exclude transgender Americans from military service, partially upholding a lower court order protecting currently serving transgender plaintiffs from being discharged. Unfortunately, the ruling does not allow new transgender recruits to enlist, and the decision has been temporarily stayed while the administration seeks further review.

Judge Robert Wilkins, writing for the majority, concluded that the policy “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender.”

FFRF previously denounced Trump’s January 2025 executive order for demeaning transgender service members and claiming that transgender identity is incompatible with an “honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.” FFRF considers it a sop to Christian nationalists and an attack on human dignity and national security.  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, later issued a policy presumptively disqualifying people with gender dysphoria from service.

The ruling arrives during Pride Month, at a time when several Republican-led states are attempting to counterprogram LGBTQ+ recognition with official celebrations of the so-called “nuclear family,” “strong families” or “fidelity.” These proclamations define family through narrow religious and political terms, elevating heterosexual marriage and traditional gender roles while implicitly excluding LGBTQ+ families.

“This ruling is a welcome rebuke to a cruel policy rooted in prejudice, not military necessity,” says FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “The government should not be in the business of declaring that transgender Americans are unfit to serve because they offend the religious or political sensibilities of Christian nationalists.

“The timing is not subtle,” Barker adds. “During a month meant to recognize the dignity and resilience of LGBTQ+ people, political leaders are using government proclamations and federal policy to tell them they are lesser citizens. That is exactly why Pride Month remains necessary and why FFRF stands firmly with the LGBTQ+ community, including the 11 percent of its membership who identify as LGBTQ+.”

Barker notes that thousands of transgender Americans serve or have served honorably in the armed forces. Qualified people in a fair and secular democracy should never be excluded from service because they are transgender, which scapegoats them, undermines equality and weakens military readiness. 

FFRF warns that this discrimination is a part of the broader Christian nationalist goal: to use government power to enforce a narrow religious vision of gender, sexuality and family and to privilege one religious worldview at the expense of everyone else. The state/church watchdog will continue working for America to live up to its ideals and be a country where every American is judged by their character and contributions, not by whether they conform to someone else’s religious beliefs.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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