Noah Feldman, Columnist

A Ban on Transgender Troops Is Doomed in the Courts

Trump's tweets announcing the policy point to discriminatory intent, not a real justification.

July 26, 2017 at 7:12 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Protecting the Constitution.
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A ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military would probably be unconstitutional under any circumstances. But President Donald Trump has pretty much guaranteed that courts would strike down such a ban by announcing it Wednesday on Twitter, without any real justification.

Who knows whether Trump will follow up his tweets with an actual order. That would normally come from the Pentagon, which was reportedly surprised by the announcement. If he does, courts may use the initial tweet as an indicator that the decision was motivated by anti-transgender sentiment, not reason. That alone would be enough to sink the order, despite the high degree of deference that is usually accorded to the military for national security decisions.