The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Donald Trump’s ban on trans people serving in the military could be enforced while legal challenges against the policy continue.

The ban on trans service members — one of Trump’s early executive orders in a tidal wave of discriminatory directives — had been blocked by lower courts. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, one of the judges who previously ruled to block the ban in February, said the executive order showed “unadulterated animus” to “an entire group of people.” Anti-trans animus is all there is: The government has made no effort to show that trans service members have been detrimental to military objectives, discipline, and cohesion — because it’s a lie.

That lie didn’t stop the Supreme Court’s conservative majority form its ruling to permit the enforcement of the ban. And the consequences could reach far beyond this case itself.

That the enforced ban risks immediately upending the lives of over 4,200 people currently serving in the military with a recorded diagnosis of gender dysphoria — the metric by which the military tracks the number of trans troops — is a cause of great concern. They can now be discharged for their gender identity alone, even while the policy’s legality remains in question.

© The Intercept