At a CNN town hall leading up to the New Hampshire presidential primary, an audience member with military experience asked Senator Amy Klobuchar what she intended to do about the newly reinstated transgender military ban (link to video): “If elected, will you commit to overturning President Trump’s transgender military ban and providing gender-affirming health care […]

Vice Admiral Michael Gilday, just confirmed to be the new Chief of Naval Operations, was extremely clear in his testimony (at page 56) to the Senate about whether transgender military service and, more specifically, service by people who transition gender before or during service, has had any impact on readiness: Q: In your experience, has […]

The House of Representatives recently passed, on a bipartisan basis, an amendment to the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit discrimination in eligibility for military service and treatment while in military service. Modeled on President Harry Truman’s 1948 executive order to desegregate the military, the amendment, if enacted, would be the first time […]

The Department of Justice is now citing the transgender-military and Muslim-ban cases as authority in the census case, in support of the argument that it should be allowed to reverse-engineer new justifications for discriminatory policy when its rationalizations fail the first time, and also cut off any discovery into the old justifications.  This tactic of […]

Palm wrote about the University of Texas ROTC cadet, Map Pesqueira, who lost a scholarship when the transgender ban went into effect, here, here, and here. Recently Vox featured an interesting profile of a former ROTC cadet who lost a scholarship in 1992 because of the gay ban and how the financial impact continues today. […]

Every Positive Aspect of the Opinion Comes With a Poison Pill That Could Make It Meaningless. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an opinion on transgender service that was partly unexpected, given that the Supreme Court had already stepped in to let the Trump ban take effect for now, while legal challenges proceed. […]

There ought to be some rational explanation for why Map Pesqueira, a transgender cadet already enrolled in ROTC, was dismissed despite DOD’s promise to protect people currently in officer training from the ban. But there isn’t a rational explanation. The ROTC policy failed, and DOD is holding firm in refusing to explain (or simply not […]