A Pentagon policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service, a divided panel of federal appeal court judges ruled on Monday in another legal setback for President Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda.
The majority opinion — by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit — held that the Trump administration’s policy was designed to exclude people from the military based on their gender identity.
The ban will remain in effect for now. The U.S. Supreme Court let it go through last year as litigation continues to play out, and the appeals court put their own ruling on hold to allow for appeals. It would apply to plaintiffs serving in the miliary, but not those seeking to join. So the military would be able to prevent new transgender people from enlisting.
The appeals court panel’s 2-1 decision largely upholds a March 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C. Reyes concluded that Trump’s executive order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights.
The administration appealed after Reyes issued a preliminary injunction requested by attorneys for several transgender people who are active-duty service members and others seeking to join the military. The appeal court’s majority decided that the injunction should be narrowed to the plaintiffs currently serving in the military but not those trying to enlist.
Another lawsuit challenging the ban was filed in Washington state and led to a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs challenging the policy in that case
It’s not illegal if you don’t do anything about it.
The ban will remain in effect for now.
That’s exactly what this administration has been doing and doesn’t care about judges’ rulings when they can just keep doing it.
When potus appeals the injunction:
Scotus: “We’ll allow the ban while the appeal plays out.”When the plaintiffs appeal scotus’s halt on the injunction:
Appeals Court: “We’ll allow the ban while the appeal plays out.”It’s basically saying “This is illegal, but we’ll allow it to continue.”
Justice is dead, if it was ever anything but a farce to begin with.
As long as we’re too comfortable to bother committing our free time to fighting these injustices, the ones enabling/enacting them will be too comfortable to bother with stopping.
Civic engagement is only optional if you feel represented and supported by your government.
Now I’m gonna go so I can smoke weed and play video games to block out how bad things are.
I don’t even think it’s about being too comfortable. Most people aren’t comfortable with the situation overall, but it’s hard to see anything we can actually do about it. The time to stop this was in 2024.
There’s such thing as feasibility, and any military strategist who lasts long enough to earn the title understands this. Michael Collins didn’t just show up and start bricking British soldiers in the public square.
George Washington, Charles de Gaulle, T.E. Lawrence, Leia Organa; agree with them or not, these people knew better than to wage a lopsided war out in the open, and that’s the only way they (or the movements they led) became anything more than footnotes in grad-level history textbooks.
Even Ho Chi Minh if you prefer that example, he knew better than to wage a conventional war of attrition against a military superpower.
The German resistance didn’t last very long after Nazis took power. If it weren’t for an alliance of military superpowers waging a coordinated war on (more than) two fronts, the Nazis might never have been deposed.
So all these keyboard warriors who say “Do something, cowards” are really idiotic. I don’t even bother trying to talk sense into them anymore.
It’s worth considering lateral transfer for those still willing to serve, and are looking for a chance to relocate.
Not sure about other countries, though Australia has a lateral transfer program for currently serving or recently separated personnel (within 3 years of separation from their local defence/military force), and offers a pathway to Australian citizenship.
https://www.defence.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-10/OLRSHandbook.pdf
Australia is openly supportive of LGBTQ+ soldiers, too.
https://www.defence.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-05/989-25-26-documents.pdf
Why does everyone have to be so mean to trans people? We haven’t done shit to anyone.
The very short answer? Insecurity.
The slightly longer answer?
Many people get their sense of right and wrong, their morality, their entire identity exclusively from those around them, and never from themselves. They don’t even think they are capable of having any of that themselves; mainly because they’ve been told since they could barely misunderstand language that that’s impossible.
If your society disallows personal identity and forces you to pick from a preselected and made set of options then anyone not fitting those options is doing something wrong. Many of them legitimately do not understand why they dislike trans people or gay people or just people that don’t fit into the narrow version of society they grew up understanding was the limit of acceptable existence, they just know “it ain’t right.”
The existence of the Other, especially an Other that is incredibly proud and out about their existence, one who is not ashamed to not fit into any of the available options they’ve been lead to believe solely exist, physically causes them pain. Because it forces them to question, even subconsciously, if whether or not the entirety of their known existence is actually wrong. Because (statistically) that question was beat out of them at an early age.
Every child, at some point in development, encounters someone outside their “tribe” that they do not understand. They look to those around them for guidance, of course, but if in an independent environment (i.e. a sheltered white child meeting a black child at a playground mostly unsupervised) the child will show curiosity and then acceptance assuming the encounter doesn’t end in any perceived danger. That child automatically accepted the Other into their “tribe” without question, because without outside input and without any sense of danger, there’s no reason not to; however if that child did have someone in their ‘tribe’ close by that disapproved, or worse yet explained why they disapproved, that child will associate that interaction as ‘outside the tribe’ and develop discriminatory beliefs because that new person is not how “they should be.” They do not take any of the roles in the tribe that have been explained.
Now modern humans in modern times can break out of “tribal” thought. In fact most will try to at some point, early in their childhood, then again in their teen years, and finally if and when they are placed independently in a new environment in their young adult years (the college effect). But if there’s someone there at every turning point stopping them from gaining that independence, they will just withdraw and stay in that simplistic world view.
They are a {straight} {man/woman} who does {tribe-approved work role for gender} and {insert tribe approved weekly cultural activity}. If you differ, you’re a danger to yourself and others, and you must be corrected. Because obviously someone taught you to be different. And that someone that taught you was wrong because they themselves were different, and so on, back to {insert cultural reference about warring tribes (i.e. Lilith v Eve)}. You might not even be human.
The other comment is good, but I think there’s something larger. Conservative policies are incredibly unpopular, as is the sitting President. However, this doesn’t matter if you can mobilize people against a common enemy, and it doesn’t matter if that enemy is real or imagined.
Trans people are uncommon enough that most people don’t understand that they’re perfectly normal people just trying to live their lives, just like they are. It’s easy to make up stories about them destroying society, and being the root of all evil, and they don’t ever meet a trans person who dispells this idea. This makes them a useful enemy that they can fight against instead of actually doing what benefits the people.
Finally some good news
The ban will remain in effect for now.
Not really good news until they actually stop this and do something to make the affected people whole again and then some. They invented a new class of ignored, fucked-over veterans, many of whom are probably now homeless or dead.
The Whitehouse in response to this: “Fuck you, we’re just going to ignore this decision!”
The federal legislative and judiciary branches: “O-okay then, I guess. 🥺/☺️”
Gangsters seized control. The corrupted establishment, already in bed with those gangsters’ are too chickenshit to stand up for the United States of America. Fucking cunts…
They don’t even have to do that. This literally states they don’t have to stop. It’s insane.
Seems like a good way to ensure that the ReUnion will have the best troops, while the NeoConfederates only get those willing to lick the bottles of Kegsbreath.
Removed by mod
Just like how grindr always seems to get overwhelmed whenever the GOP has a large convention
Orphan crushing machine vibes.
