Air Force stripped transgender troops' separation boards of discretion, barred recording of proceedings

On August 12, 2025, the Air Force's then-interim assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, Brian Scarlett, signed a memo -- announced August 15 -- directing that any airman with a current or past diagnosis of gender dysphoria must be recommended for separation by an administrative board, eliminating the boards' previous authority to weigh fitness, performance, and character before deciding whether to retain a service member. Boards may no longer receive evidence toward a retention waiver or a lesser separation characterization once the diagnosis is established. The Associated Press reported that the guidance also prohibits recording the proceedings, eliminating the independent transcript service members would otherwise need to appeal a board's decision or that Air Force leadership could use to review whether a hearing was conducted properly.

Military lawyer Priya Rashid, who has represented dozens of transgender service members before separation boards, said she had never seen an order like it, noting boards have traditionally retained service members accused of far more serious misconduct -- including repeated DUIs and domestic violence -- while now exercising no discretion at all once a gender dysphoria diagnosis is established. A New York Times investigation published August 3, 2026 examined the resulting closed-door hearings in detail; Rashid told the Times she had lost 27 of 28 cases under the new process and described it as a public humiliation ritual.

Updates

2026-06-01 — D.C. Circuit blocked discharge of transgender troops pending appeal [4]

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 that the Pentagon's transgender military ban was unlawfully motivated "by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group" and blocked the discharge of currently serving transgender service members -- including those processed through Air Force separation-board proceedings -- while the underlying lawsuit, Talbott v. USA, continued. The panel allowed the Pentagon to continue barring new transgender enlistments pending the litigation's outcome.

2026-06-30 — Court certified class action extending discharge block to all trans troops [5]

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia certified Talbott v. USA as a class action, extending the June 1 protection against discharge from the original plaintiffs to all transgender service members currently serving in the military.

2026-07-16 — DOJ told D.C. Circuit it plans to appeal ruling to Supreme Court [6]

The Justice Department notified the D.C. Circuit it intends to petition the Supreme Court, by August 30, 2026, to overturn the appeals court's June 1 ruling shielding currently serving transgender troops from discharge; as of early August the petition had not yet been filed.