Trump's ban on transgender troops has bad day in court

While Trump's newest policy on banning  transgender men and women from serving in the military came out Friday, his Administration went to court today in Seattle to defend the ban in general.

It didn't go well for them. To put it nicely, the judge might as well have said "how in the world are y'all gonna come up in my court with this bullshit?"

Washington publication The Stranger broke down the proceedings:

Justice Department attorney Ryan Parker did not have an easy case today attempting to argue in favor of President Trump's transgender military ban in US District Judge Marsha Pechman's courtroom. 

The plaintiffs in the case, which now include both transgender service members and the state of Washington, filed the lawsuit nearly eight months ago after Trump tweeted that transgender individuals would no longer be allowed to serve in the military.

. . . Justice Department attorney Ryan Parker attempted to argue that because of the new policy (which ultimately resembles the old one), the plaintiffs' case against the government over the old transgender military ban memo was moot. But Judge Pechman, who had earlier issued a preliminary injunction finding that the old ban caused immediate harm to transgender individuals, did not appear to buy that argument. 

"I've read your brief," Judge Pechman at one point told Parker. "I can't find any factual underpinnings in what you've supplied to me in the brief." 

Pechman also criticized Parker and the Justice Department for failing to respond to the state of Washington's arguments made in a separate brief altogether, failing to put their briefs in the right font, failing to make their arguments outside of their briefs' footnotes. She even once considered holding the Feds in contempt of court. Perchman also grilled Parker for not including arguments about the legitimacy of the Twitter-announced ban in the existing briefs, and merely focusing on the last-minute policy issued on Friday.

The ruling could come within a month. Meanwhile, according to The Hill, more than 20 retired generals and admirals issued a statement opposing this latest rendition of the ban.

'Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler helping hate group push lie about trans troop ban' & other Tue midday news briefs

The Family Research Council is doubling down on the lie that Trump's recent transgender troops ban came from the Department of Defense rather than an ad-hoc committee of anti-LGBTQ activists (including FRC head Tony Perkins.) Yesterday, the group retweeted the following from one of its allies in Congress:

(2/2) @DeptofDefense focus should be on fighting and winning our nation's wars, not advancing a political cause at the expense of lives and common sense.

— Rep. Vicky Hartzler (@RepHartzler) March 26, 2018

Hartzler was the point person in getting Trump's original transgender troops off the ground, including constantly needling him about it and supplying misleading data (which also included astronomical monetary figures about how much it would cost to allow trans troops to serve openly - figures which her office refused to explain about when asked) to justify it:

Hate group Family Research Council awards Congresswoman who waged war against transgender troops

Hate group to host Congresswoman who funneled its false data

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Trans military ban ignored by reporters, White House at briefing - Why I'm pushing hard for the above issue. Very few in the media has covered this and our community has a way of being desensitized after a while. It's really not our fault. When you have to deal with homophobic bigotry, desensitization is a coping mechanism. 

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Gay couple to open Wisconsin's first group home for LGBTQ youth - This is wonderful and I wish them much luck.

Family Research Council sets a standard for lying in explaining trans troop ban

The Family Research Council bent over backwards to obscure how its president, Tony Perkins, helped to develop a new ban on trans troops.

As to be expected, the Family Research Council posted a Washington Update celebrating Trump's newest attempt to ban transgender troops from serving in the military. And of course, the update is a piece of deluded trip which deliberately obscured that the fact that FRC president Tony Perkins was one of the folks who played a part in drafting this monstrosity of a policy.

Also, FRC seems to be deluding itself in terms of what is known about this newest ban. You can read the entire thing, but here is the meat of FRC's distortion:

Under the memo released Friday, both Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson signed their names to a 40-page document that will help free our military from the radical grip of the Obama years. Building on the GOP platform he swore to uphold, the president took a strong and decisive step away from the uncertainty that Ash Carter injected into the military when he tore down the barriers to transgender service. "Military standards are high for a reason," Secretary Mattis wrote in the report, "the trauma of war, which all service members must be prepared to face, demands physical, mental, and moral standards that will give all service members the greatest chance to survive their ordeal with their bodies, minds, and moral character intact. The Department would be negligent to sacrifice those standards for any cause."

In the new policy, people who identify as transgender, but who haven't been formally diagnosed with "gender dysphoria" and have not undergone a "gender transition" are free to serve or join the military -- with one catch: they must serve as their biological sex. On the other hand, anyone with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria (which the Pentagon defines as someone who requires "substantial medical treatment, including through medical drugs or surgery") are barred from the military, except under limited circumstances. While there are certain caveats, including when a person entered the military and in what state of transition, the administration's decision sends a powerful message that the days of reckless social engineering in the military are over.

After digging into the science and the instability Obama's policy created, Mattis and his team were more convinced than ever that letting this type of gender chaos into the military presents a "considerable risk" to its "effectiveness and lethality." And they had more than enough evidence to back it up. The memo does a great job dismantling the flawed RAND study that former Secretary Ash Carter used to prop up Obama's move. DOD insists that RAND "mischaracterizes or overstates the reports on which it rests its conclusions" (p. 39). "In fact," officials write, "the RAND study itself repeatedly emphasized the lack of quality data on these issues and qualified its conclusions accordingly" -- a fact the last administration never bothered to mention.

The Defense Department also takes Carter's regime to task, explaining that they found several instances where "standards were adjusted or relaxed to accommodate service by transgender persons" (p. 19) -- which is somewhat ironic, given the Left's insistence on "equality." To bend the rules and justify their decision, Carter's team had to ignore stacks of research from their own ranks. For example, people who suffer from "gender dysphoria" in the military are eight times more likely to commit suicide (p. 21) and nine times more likely to have negative "mental health encounters." And while the taxpayer-funded treatments go on, their service peers are the ones left picking up the slack. "To access recruits with higher rates of anticipated unavailability for deployment thrusts a heavier burden on those who would deploy more often" (p. 27). While Democrats like Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) fire off angry tweets, arguing that the president's position "cuts directly across the drive for equality," DOD points out just how mistaken they are. If any policy was unfair, it was Obama's! As Defense officials point out, if a service member had to have genital reconstruction surgery because of a traumatic combat injury, they would have been disqualified from military service without a waiver. But if someone decided to change sexes because they were struggling with their identity, their waiver would be granted (p. 28). That's how twisted Obama's agenda was -- rewarding service members with mental struggles on one hand and punishing hurting heroes on the other.

As we all know, the memo in question was NOT developed by Mattis or the Department of Defense.  Mattis was actually for transgender men and women serving in the military. He advocated this position in February. What changed?

News brief special - Family Research Council trying to omit its role in developing transgender troop ban

Anti-LGBTQ Activists Reportedly Helped Guide New Pentagon Policy On Trans Service Members - Just in case you didn't know this, you do now and it will be shouted until it is drilled into the heads of the LGBTQ community. Don't let the homophobes write the policies which govern our lives. Tell each other and contact your congressional leaders. 

 Trump’s panel of “experts” on trans military ban included anti-LGBTQ hate groups and extremists - With more detail on who these folks are and why this practice is dangerous.

Joni Ernst says she supports transgender people serving in the military - Never thought I would ever agree with Joni Ernst but her statement says it all. 

 Meanwhile, the Family Research Council commented by sending this laughably ridiculous tweet by Congressman Andy Harris, who just happens to be an enemy of LGBTQ equality:

My statement regarding @POTUS’ policy regarding transgender individuals serving in the military: pic.twitter.com/sgYu80yINd

— Rep. Andy Harris, MD (@RepAndyHarrisMD) March 24, 2018

And another tweet conveniently omitting how its president Tony Perkins helped to develop the ban via refuted junk science:

The new policy will allow the military to apply "well-established mental and physical health standards" equally to all seeking to join the U.S. armed forces." @PressSecSanders @CBNNews #fairness #military https://t.co/Fm1PLnX15S

— FRC (@FRCdc) March 26, 2018

You are going to have to do better than that, FRC

Eight reasons why the LGBTQ community cannot trust Mike Pence

Now that we know that it was Vice President Mike Pence who was behind this newest ban against transgender troops and we know how he pushed for it (overruling Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis who thought that transgender troops should serve, gathering together his own committee filled with anti-LGBTQ activists to create reasons for the ban, and ignoring the committee who was set up to look at the issue), this supercut of a 2015 interview when he was governor of Indiana has a new poignancy. 

Pence at the time had signed an anti-gay "religious freedom" bill and eight times during the interview, he refused to say if he was opposed to anti-LGBTQ discrimination. I think it's safe to say based upon his actions regarding the transgender troops ban, we now have our answer.

I personally never felt for the "aw, shucks" bullshit Pence tried to project throughout his political life. While he does it better than Mike Huckabee, his soft-gloved approval of homophobia is still there. And this case, more dangerous. Let's not get so distracted by Trump's antics that we don't keep an eye on this charlatan.

The Slate reports that Trump's newest trans troops ban was developed in part by anti-LGBTQ actIvists

According to The Slate, Tony Perkins of FRC helped develop Trump's newest trans troops ban.

Friday night, the Trump Administration released a new policy which bans most transgender men and women from serving in the military.

In a memo released Friday night, the White House said that transgender individuals are “disqualified from military service except under limited circumstances.” The full ban was set to officially take effect Friday, though a pair of federal courts in December ordered the U.S. military to allow the recruitment of transgender citizens into the armed forces despite Trump’s declaration. “Transgender persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria ― individuals who the policies state may require substantial medical treatment, including medications and surgery ― are disqualified from military service except under certain limited circumstances,” the memo says.

 Critics of this ban were caught by surprise but quickly voiced their opposition. The White House, however, insisted that;the policy was “developed through extensive study by senior uniformed and civilian leaders, including combat veterans."

This would be a departure from last year when Trump tried to implement a trans ban via a tweet message.

One group pleased with the new ban was  the Family Research Council. In a statement, the FRC president Tony Perkins said the following:

President Trump is moving the military away from the crippling policies of the Obama era that left our nation’s defenses at its lowest levels of readiness since before WWII. He recognizes that the last thing we should be doing is diverting tax payer dollars from mission-critical training to funding for controversial gender reassignment surgeries and transgender sensitivity training for service members. The president is keeping his promises and advancing policies essential to keeping our military strong and our country safe.

Perkins conveniently forgot to mention something about the new ban. According to The Slate, he and other anti-LGBTQ activists helped to write it.

 . . .behind the scenes, a “panel of experts” has been crafting a report, also released on Friday, designed to provide pretextual justification for Trump’s ban. According to multiple sources, Vice President Mike Pence played a leading role in the creation of this report, along with Ryan Anderson, an anti-trans activist, and Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ lobbying group. Mattis actually supports open transgender service, but he was effectively overruled by Pence, and chose not to spend his limited political capital further defending trans troops. In a memo released on Friday, Mattis encouraged Trump to ban transgender people from enlisting in the military, and to discharge those service members who wish to transition. Trump has now formally adopted these suggestions.

In other words, a policy regarding transgender men and women serving in the military was written in part by folks who are known to have a bias against transgender men and women, even to the point of spreading and relying on false information:

Tony Perkins - head of an anti-LGBTQ organization which has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group because of the distortions and lies it has spread against the LGBTQ community.

Ryan T. Anderson - an anti-LGBTQ activist with the Heritage Foundation and author of a recent book attacking the transgender community; a book which was criticized for its numerous errors and distortions.

Mike Pence - who has a long history of anti-LGBTQ actions. Last year, Trump caused a firestorm by "jokingly" claiming that Pence wanted to hang gay people.

These three men on any committee developing LGBTQ policy is akin to Richard Spencer and David Duke on a committee developing policy about racism.

The Slate pointed out:

Given its authors, the Trump report’s conclusions are unsurprising. It claims transgender service members “undermine readiness,” which is demonstrably false. The RAND study carefully analyzed the armed forces of Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United Kingdom after each country legalized open trans service, and it found these policies had no impact on “readiness.” Yet the Trump report disavows this conclusion by pointing out that each country reported some initial “resistance in the ranks”—which, it argues, “is a strong indication of an adverse effect on unit cohesion.”

For now, Trump's newest ban is irrelevant. Court injunctions are in place allowing trans troops to serve in the military. Still, it is very bothersome to find out that Trump consulted with people like Anderson and Perkins to create policy on members of the LGBTQ community.  And also that Pence is allowing his homophobic bias to taint the same process.

It's scary to ponder what other policies about our community these three may be involved in undermining.

UPDATE:Pence secretly drafted Trump’s latest transgender military ban - Zack Ford of ThinkProgress has just published a more detailed article of how this newest trans troop came to be and it is scary. Pence is behind the entire thing, even to the point of overruling Mattis (who wanted transgender troops to be able to serve in the military) and creating his own committee comprised of anti-LGBTQ activists while ignoring the committee already created to look at the issue

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