The United States district court in Maryland has issued an opinion in one of the four challenges to Trump’s transgender military ban. We can expect to see additional rulings like this from time to time as cases move toward trial. The ban was officially reinstated on April 12, 2019 after the Supreme Court decided it […]

A new Pew Research Center poll of U.S. military veterans found that 46% support inclusive policy that would allow transgender people to serve in the military, in comparison to the 64% of U.S. adults overall who support equal opportunity.  A few points of context to keep in mind if these numbers are cited as evidence […]

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 […]

Our entire democratic system is based on an assumption of trust and good faith in government decision making. If we can’t take government actors at their word, at least most of the time, everything breaks down. In upholding the Trump travel ban, the Supreme Court gave the benefit of the doubt to arguments from Department […]

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. […]