A legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive orders banning transgender individuals from serving in the military exposes great division on the issue.
Twenty state attorneys general have filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit to block the Trump administration’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military.
The attorneys general said the ban is “unconstitutional” and “harms national security.”
They allege President Donald Trump’s order violates the Fifth Amendment because it deprives transgender service members of their livelihood without due process of law.
In their brief, the attorneys general stated the ban would harm the readiness of the National Guard to respond to natural disasters, hinder recruitment efforts, and undermine their state governments’ non-discrimination policies toward LGBT people.
They also allege that a president is limited by federal law from certain actions affecting the composition of a state’s National Guard.
The attorneys general stated that military readiness and national security benefit from the service of transgender individuals.
The amici states said their own experience, the distinguished service records of transgender individuals who have served and are serving, and the opinions of major medical organizations, such as the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, justified their support for the lawsuit.
Trump’s executive order stated the purpose of the change is to ensure the readiness, effectiveness, and “warrior ethos” that makes the American military “the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force.”
“It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,” the Jan. 27 order stated.
According to the order, the pursuit of the above standards cannot be “diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.” The expression of a “false gender identity divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards.”
The order stated that the need of transgender individuals for ongoing medical, surgical, and mental health care is also inconsistent with the military’s stated standards and objectives for active-duty readiness.
The executive order also put an end to what it called “invented and identification-based pronoun usage” that inaccurately reflects an individual’s sex.
By Steven Kovac
