Navy and Marine Boards Defy Trump's Trans Troop Ban, Voting to Keep 9 of 12

President Trump ordered transgender troops out of the military in his first week back in office, and the Supreme Court let that order take effect. But inside the Navy and the Marine Corps, the officers picked to carry it out are voting to keep them.

Navy and Marine Corps separation boards have voted to retain transgender service members in nine of the 12 cases they have heard, The New York Times reported Friday. The Pentagon doesn't release the numbers. The Times put them together from interviews with service members and their lawyers.

The scorecard

Navy: hearings began in July. Nine boards, seven votes to keep the sailor.

Marine Corps: hearings began in August. Three boards, two votes to keep the Marine. The third board did vote to discharge, but it wrote on its findings sheet that its members unanimously believed the Marine should "be retained based on his commendable service record and unique skills."

Army and Air Force: the opposite. The Army has held about 50 hearings and voted to discharge in all but about five, according to one defense lawyer. Air Force boards have voted to discharge in all six known cases.

Think of the boards like juries of three, pulled from everyday jobs to hear one case. The difference is that these juries were handed a one-page sheet and told what counts. Under the rules, any evidence that a service member is transgender, such as a history of cross-sex hormones, means the member is not qualified to serve. Boards are not supposed to weigh how good a sailor or Marine has been.

Crossing out the rules

In one Quantico case described by the Times, a government lawyer showed a board 2017 records proving that Marine Staff Sgt. Damien Contreras, a woman by birth who now goes by a male name, had transitioned. The three board members then reviewed a decade of service and three deployments, crossed out the line about "a history of cross sex hormone therapy," and circled "remains qualified."

In a Navy case, a paramedic's lawyer asked the three board members whether they knew any transgender sailors. All three said yes, the sailor told the Times. One said he barbecues with his transgender next-door neighbor. That board voted to retain.

Even an advocate cheering the votes describes them as the boards refusing to follow the process. "We are seeing them say they're not going to play that game. We are seeing them nullify a process they see as unjust," Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air Force lawyer and Southwestern Law School professor tracking the cases, told the Times.

The lawyer who has represented dozens of these service members, Priya Rashid, said she can't explain the shift and expects the Pentagon to respond. "I'm worried that if the pattern becomes too apparent, the government will just change the processes and procedures again so that the pattern can be extinguished," she said.

What the order says

Trump's January 2025 executive order was blunt. "For the sake of our Nation and the patriotic Americans who volunteer to serve it, military service must be reserved for those mentally and physically fit for duty," it reads. It also says, "A man's assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."

On May 6, 2025, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the policy while lawsuits continue, lifting a lower-court order that had blocked it. Only Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson would have kept it blocked.

The Pentagon first offered transgender troops payments to leave on their own, and hundreds did, the Times reported. The paper puts the total number of transgender troops at about 4,250, roughly 0.1% of the force. The boards hear the cases of those who stayed and fought their discharge.

Who has the final word

The board votes are only recommendations. The politically appointed secretaries who run each service can reverse them. The military branches, citing ongoing litigation, declined to discuss the outcomes, and the Defense Department declined to comment to the Times. The Pentagon told the Daily Caller it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

So the ban stands, the courts have let it stand, and the final call sits with the Navy secretary and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's team, not with three officers in a hearing room. How long they let nine of 12 stand is the next thing to watch.