The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with the Trump administration in allowing the Department of Defense to enforce its ban on most transgender military service members while litigation continues.

In a brief order, the justices granted the administration’s emergency request to stay a lower court injunction that had blocked President Donald Trump’s policy, which bars individuals with gender dysphoria or those who have undergone gender transition medical procedures from serving in the armed forces.

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The justices’ 6-3 decision, to which Democratic-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, means the ban will remain in place while the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals hears the government’s appeal — and, if the justices take the case, until the Supreme Court ultimately rules.

The majority who sided with the Trump administration offered no explanation for lifting the lower court halt on the policy.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed the policy, which mirrors a similar position that banned transgender service members during Trump’s first term but which made an exception for some who had already begun transitioning, in line with rules put in place under former President Barack Obama. The current policy makes no exceptions, deeming service members with a gender dysphoria diagnosis or history of these symptoms unfit for the line of duty.

The district court ruling under review, from Washington state, stemmed from one of several legal challenges targeting Trump’s executive order and Hegseth’s attempt to implement it, which plaintiffs say goes further than past restrictions by requiring immediate discharge of transgender personnel already in the military.

U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle had granted a preliminary injunction blocking the DoD’s policy from taking effect nationally in March, ruling the hardship that the government said allowing transgender people to serve would inflict “pales in comparison” to the hardship imposed on such service members.

A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declined to pause the injunction while the Trump administration appeals that decision, prompting the Justice Department’s emergency request to the justices on April 24.

In a similar case, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, based in Washington, D.C., also blocked the policy from taking effect on March 18. A separate appeals court temporarily halted her order while it weighed whether to grant a longer pause.

Several transgender service members wrote in an amicus brief in the separate case last week that the ban on transgender military service members would cause great damage, including “constitutional harm that can never be undone.“

Meanwhile, groups representing service members challenging Trump’s ban, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, issued a statement rebuking the high court’s order.

“We remain steadfast in our belief that this ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down,” a spokesperson representing both groups wrote in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

Solicitor General John Sauer, who was sworn into his position last month, argued in his application to the high court that the injunction improperly intruded on the president’s core military powers, noting that the Supreme Court had allowed the similar Trump-era ban to take effect in 2019.

TRUMP SEEKS SUPREME COURT INTERVENTION IN TRANSGENDER TROOPS BAN

Sauer told the court the ban was rooted in science and that courts owe the executive branch “substantial deference” on military matters.

A DOJ spokesperson welcomed the high court’s decision, telling the Washington Examiner it “rightly rejected attempts to inject gender ideology into our military at the expense of our fighting capabilities” and pledging that the department “will continue to fight against desperate attempts to seize control of America’s military readiness for a radical social agenda.”