Judge hammers Trump's lawyer on trans bias

From The Independent:

A federal judge eviscerated language in Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order targeting transgender service members in the U.S. military and “radical gender ideology” and the use of pronouns.

During Tuesday’s hearing in Washington, D.C., where lawyers for trans service members are challenging Trump’s order that has triggered Department of Defense policy blocking gender-affirming healthcare and new trans recruits, a furious District Judge Ana Reyes interrogated Trump’s “demeaning,” “biologically inaccurate” and “frankly ridiculous” language.

Reyes, who was appointed by Joe Biden, fired off a series of questions attacking the order’s statements that suggest trans Americans are dishonorable and lack “warrior ethos” and humility.

She also grilled government lawyers over the order’s statements against “shifting pronoun usage” and the “use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”

“Would you agree that if the military is negatively impacted, we all have a lot bigger problems than pronoun use?” Reyes asked. If that is the case, “our military is incompetent,” she said.

“I can’t agree with that,” Justice Department attorney Jason Lynch said.

“Do you think usage of that preferred pronoun by that small group of people is going to impact our ability in combat situations?” she asked. “Explain to me how pronoun usage impacts [military readiness]. Because any common sense human being would understand it doesn’t.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has instructed U.S. military branches to pause gender-affirming care procedures and prescriptions and deny trans recruits.

Reyes called the assertion “frankly ridiculous,” and even said she would entertain testimony from an officer of the U.S. military to testify in the government’s defense, if they could find one.

“If you can get me an officer of the United States military to get on the stand and say that because of pronoun usage we are less prepared, I will be the first to buy you a box of cigars,” she said.

Trump’s order, which he issued in his first days in office, was implemented by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month, directed all branches to pause the admission of new transgender service members, and to pause all affirming healthcare procedures and prescriptions for active troops.

The order also claims that the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”

“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,” the order states.

Reyes repeatedly asked whether that language is “demeaning” to transgender people.

“The government is not willing to take a position [that] to categorically call a group of people selfish is demeaning?” she said. “The answer is ‘yes it is,’ ‘no it isn’t,’ or ‘I can’t say.’”

Lynch said he could not speak to it in a “constitutional sense.”

“I want to know from the government, whether that language expresses animus,” said Reyes, suggesting that she could strike against the executive order to prove that it was motivated by prejudice.

“This is the policy of the president of the United States that is impacting thousands of people,” she said. “Calling an entire group of people lying, dishonest people with no integrity....how is that anything other than showing animus?....You have an answer, you just refuse to give it.”

Trump is facing a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn executive orders targeting transgender service members as well as incarcerated trans women and gender-affirming healthcare.

Earlier, Reyes noted that Trump’s separate executive order that eliminates federal recognition of trans people inaccurately states there are only two sexes, without accounting for intersex people.

“This executive order is premised on an assertion that’s not biologically correct. There are anywhere near 30 intersex examples. Anyone who doesn’t have XX or XY chromosomes is not just male or female, they’re intersex,” Reyes said. “If I’m intersex, where am I allowed to go?”

Reyes is weighing whether to issue a preliminary injunction that would effectively block the order.

Trump’s order also rails against what the president and his allies have labeled “radical gender ideology,” which government lawyers could not define in court.

“If you can’t articulate what radical gender ideology means, how is the defense secretary going to know what it means?” Reyes asked.

Lynch said he is “loathe to speculate“ what Trump meant.

“It’s not like I randomly picked you off the street,” Reyes fired back. “You’re the government’s representative here.”

Affidavits from trans service members and plaintiffs in the case — including decorated veterans and long-serving troops from across the military branches — illustrate the far-reaching impacts of Trump’s order within the days after it was issued.

In one case, a 27-year-old Navy officer who has served for five years and is a transgender man was literally on a surgery table for a planned double mastectomy when a surgeon delivered “unfortunate news” that his surgery could not be performed.

Tricare, the military health insurer, “would no longer cover my surgery,” according to his affidavit.

“I want to be able to serve my country on the same terms as any other service member,” he wrote. “My treating physicians have all determined that this surgery is medically necessary for my care plan. But I am being denied this care solely because I am transgender.”

Trump has also signed an executive order designed to push transgender women and girl’s from women’s sports.

At least two lawsuits are asking courts to overturn Trump’s order.

Thousands of transgender troops are currently serving, “and are fully qualified for the positions in which they serve,” filling critical roles in combat arms, aviation, nuclear engineering, law enforcement, and military intelligence, among other fields, according to SPARTA Pride, which represents trans Americans in the military.

“The readiness and physical capabilities of transgender service members is not different from that of other service members,” the group said in a statement.