Looks like Tr*mp’s at it again.
Despite numerous courts ruling that Donald Trump can’t implement his widely condemned transgender ban for the military, he’s still attempting to pass it into law.
Now choosing to ignore legal processes all together, Trump is attempting to get the case heard directly in the Supreme Court, which would skip the Appeals Court.
In petitions filed by Trump’s solicitor general, Noel Francisco, the Supreme Court is being asked to make a judgement on three separate cases, and whatever their decision is, it will be final.
Last year, Trump announced that he was banning transgender people from serving in the military, citing medical costs and disruption. His announcement was immediately met with a backlash.
A lawsuit was filed against the proposed ban and the U.S. Defence Secretary, James Mattis, stalled it before Judge Kollar-Kotelly blocked the ban from being enforced.
Sadly, that wasn’t the end as back in March, Trump introduced a new ban, which was reportedly drafted by Vice-President Mike Pence and other anti-LGBTQ activists.
Legal battles surrounding this new ban are still ongoing, with the DC Circuit due to begin hearing a case in December, but in April a federal judge ruled that the ban could not be implemented. In her ruling, Judge Marsha Pechman ruled that transgender people were a “protected” class and Trump was not allowed to discriminate against them.
Ted Eytan via Flickr
And it’s not just through the military that the president is targeting transgender people. Last month, according to a memo obtained by the New York Times, it was revealed that the US Department of Health and Human Services have argued that gender should be defined as a “biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth”.
It comes as part of an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex. The proposal would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by an individual’s genitals at birth.
Laverne Cox, trans activist and star of Orange Is The New Black, took to social media to blast the Trump administration, labelling the move “another example of the brutality of colonialism” and encouraging followers to support anti-discrimination laws.
“This latest administration effort to legislate trans folks out of existence is yet another example of why the fight for gender equity must be intersectional and necessarily must include trans folks,” she wrote.
“Trans folks need everyone to stand with us in this fight, to let our government know this is not who we are.”
And over 1,600 scientists, including nine Nobel Prize winners, have joined the backlash, by signing an open letter condemning the memo. Their letter, which was signed by over 700 biologists and 100 geneticists, was titled “Transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people #WontBeErased by pseudoscience.”
In the letter, they write: “The proposal is in no way ‘grounded in science’ as the administration claims. The relationship between sex chromosomes, genitalia, and gender identity is complex, and not fully understood.
“There are no genetic tests that can unambiguously determine gender, or even sex. Furthermore, even if such tests existed, it would be unconscionable to use the pretext of science to enact policies that overrule the lived experience of people’s own gender identities.”
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