Trump's ban on transgender individuals in the military

[Una_Persson]

@Gyrate

While I’m thrilled that the ban has been blocked, is a “failure to be supported by facts” sufficient grounds for a judicial action?

@JRDelirious

With you on both accounts. So his justification for this nonsense is and always was BS – but is the CinC really legally impeded from issuing stupid orders based on BS justifications?

The Court felt that the plaintiffs made a strong case for a Fifth Amendment action.

Plaintiffs have established that they will be injured by these directives, due
both to the inherent inequality they impose, and the risk of discharge and denial of accession that
they engender. Further delay would only serve to harm the Plaintiffs. Given these
circumstances, the Court is in a positon to preliminarily adjudicate the propriety of these
directives, and it does so here.

The Court holds that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their Fifth Amendment claim. As
a form of government action that classifies people based on their gender identity, and disfavors a
class of historically persecuted and politically powerless individuals, the President’s directives
are subject to a fairly searching form of scrutiny. Plaintiffs claim that the President’s directives
cannot survive such scrutiny because they are not genuinely based on legitimate concerns
regarding military effectiveness or budget constraints, but are instead driven by a desire to
express disapproval of transgender people generally. The Court finds that a number of factors—
including the sheer breadth of the exclusion ordered by the directives, the unusual circumstances
surrounding the President’s announcement of them, the fact that the reasons given for them do
not appear to be supported by any facts, and the recent rejection of those reasons by the military
itself—strongly suggest that Plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment claim is meritorious.

AFAIK no President has a legal right to take away the rights and privileges of American citizens because (in effect) he finds them icky and gross.

[Gyrate]

Okay, that makes sense now.

[Pleonast]

@Nava

Maybe it’s time to challenge the notion that “not having explicitly being declared an unacceptable reason for discriminate automatically makes something a valid reason to discriminate.”

That laundry list of protected classes was supposed to be a benefit, making it easier for people in one of them to get defense, but it gets treated as if it was an excuse for anything not listed there.

The same reasoning objected to the Bill of Rights when they were being ratified. Once we start making a list, there’s a great temptation to consider the list itself to be the authority, replacing the criteria formerly used to put things on it. Instead of asking “do we have this right?” we ask “is this constitutional?”. And then that flows down to other legal issues like this one.

[Bryan_Ekers]

I gather the “ban” served its intended purpose to make the base feel good for a few days. I don’t expect Trump really cared one way or the other about the issue.

[Una_Persson]

@Bryan_Ekers

I gather the “ban” served its intended purpose to make the base feel good for a few days. I don’t expect Trump really cared one way or the other about the issue.

He’s been completely silent on the rebuke to him, although that idiot Moore from Alabama has been screaming about how we need to “impeach” the judge and “ban all transgenders[sic]” from the military, the United States, probably from the Prime Material Plane as far as I know.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Una_Persson

He’s been completely silent on the rebuke to him, although that idiot Moore from Alabama has been screaming about how we need to “impeach” the judge and “ban all transgenders[sic]” from the military, the United States, probably from the Prime Material Plane as far as I know.

Thing is, it’s a virtual coin-flip what Trump’s reaction will be, if he ever shows one:

Heads: “Banning transgenders from the military is the most important issue facing our forces today. Trust me, it’s important. You won’t believe how important it is. it’s the most important decision a president ever made.”

Tails: “I never said I wanted to ban transgenders from the military. FAKE NEWS!”

[Merneith]

Cadet Bonespurs pissed almost everyone off today by pretending he was going to veto the spending bill while his trade tariffs are making the stock market sink. Then he pissed everyone else off by actually signing the spending bill.

You know what that means: it’s time to kick a transgender person until his base is happy again!

Donald issued a new orders implementing a ban on transgendered people in the military, except in a limited capacity at the discretion of the Sectretary of Defense. It’s unclear to me what that “limited capacity” might be but I’m assuming it means support people with unique skills. I expect it means no combat service.

It’s also unclear to me how this relates to the previous ban and the assorted lawsuits that are currently blocking it. Trump says that he’s implementing this new ban based on the advice of Mattis but it wouldn’t surprise me if this was news to Mattis. We’ll see. I assume this new ban will be greeted with its own round of lawsuits and injunctions.

This might also have an added bonus for Trump of giving him a pretext for firing Mattis, so that he could install some guy from the TV.

Trump moves to ban most transgender troops