The Cruel Irony of the Profound Disruption of Personal Dignity That Is the Point
A month ago:
A federal judge blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump's executive order banning transgender people from military service on Tuesday, the latest in a string of legal setbacks for his sweeping agenda ....
.... Plaintiffs' attorneys contend Trump's order violates transgender people's rights to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.
Government lawyers argue that military officials have broad discretion to decide how to assign and deploy servicemembers without judicial interference.
Reyes said she did not take lightly her decision to issue an injunction blocking Trump's order, noting that "Judicial overreach is no less pernicious than executive overreach." But, she said, it was also the responsibility of each branch of government to provide checks and balances for the others, and the court "therefore must act to uphold the equal protection rights that the military defends every day" ....
.... "The cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed—some risking their lives—to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the military ban seeks to deny them," Reyes wrote.
(Kunzelman↱)
There's a reason the word "cruel" comes up.
Even at the time, the Trump administration was failing remarkably in its hatred of transgender:
Federal judges in Seattle and Baltimore separately paused Trump's executive order halting federal support for gender-affirming care for transgender youth under 19. Last month, a judge blocked prison officials from transferring three incarcerated transgender women to men's facilities and terminating their access to hormone therapy under another Trump order.
And it's a really big deal for Trump and his supporters:
Plaintiffs' attorneys say Trump's order fits his administration's pattern of discriminating against transgender people ....
.... Trump also signed orders that set up new rules about how schools can teach about gender and that intend to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls' and women's sports.
"From its first days, this administration has moved to strip protections from transgender people across multiple domains — including housing, social services, schools, sports, healthcare, employment, international travel, and family life," plaintiffs' lawyers wrote.
Anyway, that was about a month ago. It didn't take long before it happened again:
A U.S. judge in Washington state has blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump's order banning transgender people from serving in the military, the second nationwide injunction against the policy in as many weeks.
The order Thursday from U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma came in a case brought by several long-serving transgender military members who say the ban is insulting and discriminatory, and that their firing would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations.
In his 65-page ruling, Settle — an appointee of former President George W. Bush and a former captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps — said the administration offered no explanation as to why transgender troops, who have been able to serve openly over the past four years with no evidence of problems, should suddenly be banned.
"The government's arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record," Settle wrote. "The government's unrelenting reliance on deference to military judgment is unjustified in the absence of any evidence supporting 'the military's' new judgment reflected in the Military Ban."
Of one plaintiff, Judge Settle observed:
"There is no claim and no evidence that she is now, or ever was, a detriment to her unit's cohesion, or to the military's lethality or readiness, or that she is mentally or physically unable to continue her service," he wrote. "There is no claim and no evidence that Shilling herself is dishonest or selfish, or that she lacks humility or integrity. Yet absent an injunction, she will be promptly discharged solely because she is transgender."
It is important to remember, there is history to the issue. Trump tried to ban transgender from the military in 2016, exempting those already in the service because he needed to do so for the order to pass muster. Biden, of course, quashed the rule, and now the Trump administration is back with a vengeance.
The judges aren't stupid. They are not unaware of either the spuriousness of the conservative case or the malice that drives it.
So much so that it's easy enough to miss the other one, from New Jersey, only days before that:
A federal judge in New Jersey has issued a temporary ban on the removal of two transgender men from the Air Force, following a similar ruling last week from a judge in Washington, D.C.
U.S. District Judge Christine O'Hearn after a hearing Monday said the pair have shown their separation would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations.
She issued a two-week ban on enforcement of President Donald Trump's executive order banning transgender people from military service.
O'Hearn found that Master Sgt. Logan Ireland and Staff Sgt. Nicholas Bear Bade are likely to prevail on equal protection grounds by showing they have been singled out due to their sex and the defendants cannot justify the differential treatment.
"The loss of military service under the stigma of a policy that targets gender identity is not merely a loss of employment; it is a profound disruption of personal dignity, medical continuity, and public service," O'Hearn wrote in an order granting a 14-day restraining order.
The "profound disruption of personal dignity" is part of the cruelty that is the point. That is to say, it's
always↗ about↑ empowerment↑, and the disruption of personal dignity is pretty much all they have left.
____________________
Notes:
Dale, Maryclaire. "Another US judge issues temporary ban on Trump’s removal of transgender service members". Associated Press. 24 March 2025. APNews.com. 18 April 2025. https://apnews.com/article/trump-tr...e-new-jersey-3b7cfe4235487ce08db678ec0386a5d4
Johnson, Gene. "Another federal judge blocks Trump policy banning transgender troops in the military". Associated Press. 27 March 2025. APNews.com. 18 April 2025. https://apnews.com/article/trump-tr...gton-hegseth-e36e2b113662872b2fa29a9e74f36f72
Kunzelman, Michael. "Federal judge blocks Trump administration from banning transgender people from military service" Associated Press. 18 March 2025. APNews.com. 18 April 2025. https://apnews.com/article/trump-transgender-troops-military-7e1a52f94ee60dcd58d4c2086e14acc3
