A judge in Tacoma, Washington — roughly 2,800 miles from Washington, D.C. — issued an injunction against the ban on trans-identifying members of the military, a ban that was ordered by the commander in chief, President Donald Trump, and that the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, then tried to implement.
On Thursday, Judge Benjamin Settle — a George W. Bush appointee and a former captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps — determined that Trump’s order discriminated against the seven plaintiffs, all of whom are trans-identifying members of the U.S. Armed Forces. They are led by U.S. Navy Cmdr. Emily “Hawking” Shilling, a 42-year-old man pretending to be a woman.
“The government has … provided no evidence supporting the conclusion that military readiness, unit cohesion, lethality, or any of the other touchstone phrases long used to exclude various groups from service have in fact been adversely impacted by open transgender service,” Settle wrote in a 65-page opinion.
“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record.”
While the government asked Settle to limit any injunction to just the plaintiffs, Settle declined, claiming that district courts have “considerable discretion in ordering an appropriate equitable remedy.”
“This is the rare case that warrants a nationwide injunction,” Settle insisted.
‘Adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.’
Settle’s injunction comes on the heels of a similar injunction by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee in Washington, D.C. Reyes issued an injunction last week, then put a temporary stay on that injunction, then lifted it again. It is now scheduled to go into effect on Friday.
As might be expected, radical activists are celebrating low-level, unelected judges interfering in the decisions of the democratically elected president and the defense secretary, who passed the scrutiny of democratically elected senators.
“The Court’s decision today confirms that this ban on transgender people serving in the military is not only un-American, it’s unconstitutional,” claimed Sarah Warbelow, legal vice president of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
“Transgender service members have been serving openly and honorably for many years. Politicizing their service is out of step with the views of the American people, compromises military readiness, and will make America less safe,” GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in response to Reyes’ ruling.
“They can do the right number of pull-ups. They can do the right amount of push-ups. They can shoot straight,” Sasha Buchert, an attorney with Lambda Legal, remarked Monday. “Yet they’re being told they have to leave the military simply because of who they are.”
Buchert’s comments focused mainly on the physical abilities of trans-identifying service members, and men pretending to be women will likely pass physical fitness standards. However, such remarks sidestep the main arguments made in Trump’s EO against trans-identifying service members, which questioned their mental well-being and “honor.”
“Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, 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,” the EO signed back in January stated.
“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.”
Settle suggested in his decision that the government used obsolete data regarding trans-identifying service members.
The government is expected to appeal Settle’s ruling, as it has already done with Reyes’.
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