Two political groups for “transgender” soldiers have asked a court to establish transgenderism in the military and in the constitution, despite the lack of laws from Congress or support from the public.
The lawsuit was filed in response to President Donald Trump’s July 26 directive which ended Pentagon acceptance of the demand that people should be treated as members of the opposite sex if they say they have a “gender identity” that does not match their male or female body. Trump directed:
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.
Trump’s directive does not exclude people who want to live quietly as members of the opposite sex, but does end President Barack Obama’s 2016 official endorsement of the transgender claim that people’s biological sex is legally subordinate to their personal sense of male or female “gender.”
According to the lawsuit:
President Trump’s directive to exclude transgender people from military service discriminates against Plaintiffs based on their sex and transgender status, without lawful justification, in violation of the Equal Protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The categorical exclusion of transgender people from military service lacks a rational basis, is arbitrary, and cannot be justified by sufficient federal interests …
From the implementation of its June 2016 policy until the President’s June 26, 2017 announcement, Defendants provided Plaintiffs with ongoing support for their continued service in the military as openly transgender persons … In reliance upon that promise from Defendants, Plaintiffs have undergone medical treatment for the purpose of gender transition… Defendants [should be] estopped from rescinding the rights, benefits, and protections promised to Plaintiffs.
The lawsuit was filed by National Center for Lesbian Rights and by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders on behalf of five anonymous soldiers who are trying to live as members of the opposite sex.
The lawsuit is one of many legal efforts which transgender advocates are launching to persuade the Supreme Court to establish transgenderism — which is the legal and social claim that a person’s self-declared “gender” is more important than their biological sex.
If approved, that ambitious demand would sweep away the many evolved and popular laws and civic practices which help the two sexes compete, cooperate and complement each other. For example, sports leagues normally include women or men, but not both. Similarly, childhood is build around the idea that boys and girls should try to become an ideal male or female adult, not a member of the opposite sex.
To win that unpopular and revolutionary goal, the transgender activists and their allies in the Democratic party and in the media downplay transgenderism’s revolutionary legal principle — that personal identity trumps the provable biology of two sexes. Instead, the activists and media allies portrays the dispute as a modest request to help just a few people who face particular personal problems, such as wanting to enter a bathroom or be a soldier. This puts a sentimental and personal wrapper around an aggressive and revolutionary legal principle which threatens to invalidate many federal, state and local laws, as well as public and private civic practices. For example, the lawsuit relies on the personal priorities of five soldiers who insist they are members of the opposite sex.
According to the lawsuit:
Plaintiffs are active duty servicemembers in the United States military who serve openly as transgender people. They proceed under pseudonyms here for fear of retribution.
Jane Doe 1 has served with distinction in the United States Coast Guard for more than a decade. In or around June 2016, in reliance on the issuance of the policy permitting open service by transgender servicemembers, Jane Doe 1 notified her command that she is transgender.
Since that time, she has continued to serve without incident and has furthered her gender transition in reliance on the Department of Defense’s policy permitting open service by transgender servicemembers. Following President Trump’s tweets, Jane Doe 1 submitted a prospective letter of resignation stating that she would resign rather than be involuntarily terminated on account of her transgender status. Were the Department of Defense to retreat from the policy announced by President Trump, Jane Doe 1 would withdraw her resignation and continue to serve…
In or around June of 2016, in reliance on the Department of Defense policy permitting transgender people to serve openly in the military, Jane Doe 3 notified her command that she is transgender. Since then, she has continued serving her post without incident.
Jane Doe 3’s current contract with the military extends through December 2018. She plans to renew her contract, but fears that she will not be allowed to do so because of the ban.
“The Commander in Chief has said that transgender service members — people who have served our nation with honor and distinction — are no longer welcome to serve,” said a statement from Jennifer Levi, Director of GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project. “This unjustifiable reversal of policy is devastating to these soldiers and harmful to our country. These plaintiffs put their lives on the line every day for all of us. We can’t afford to lose a single one of them,” Levi added.
The lawsuit marks a change of strategy for transgender groups. Before Trump’s revocation of Obama’s endorsement of the gender-identity-beats-biology claim, they had hopes to use the Pentagon’s validation to win more lawsuits before making their decisive appeal to the Supreme Court.
That strategy worked rapidly for gay activists, who persuaded the Supreme Court in 2015 to approve the Obergefell decision. The decision changed marriage laws to include single-sex couples, and it redefined marriage around the needs of adults, instead of children’s need to be raised in a stable family.
The transgender goal is very unpopular, despite media pressure, partly because it would impose a huge impact on many Americans to boost the status of very few Americans. A study of the 2010 census, for example, showed that only 135,367 adults nationwide — or 1-in-2,400 adults — had changed their name from one sex to the other. Recent surveys showed that people who try to live as members of the opposite sex sharply reduce their social and romantic opportunities, and sharply increase their health problems.
The progressive push to bend Americans’ attitudes and their two-sex, male-and-female civic society around the idea of “gender” has already attacked and cracked popular social rules for how Americans handle the many differences between different, complementary and equal men and women. These pro-gender claims have an impact on different-sex bathrooms, shelters for battered women, sports leagues for girls, hiking groups for boys, K-12 curricula, university speech codes, religious freedoms, free speech, the social status of women, parents’ rights in childrearing, practices to help teenagers, women’s expectations of beauty, culture and civic society, scientific research, prison safety, civic ceremonies, school rules, men’s sense of masculinity, law enforcement, and children’s sexual privacy.
That transgender goal is also opposed some gays, by some former transgender people, and some feminists.
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