Supreme Court Green Lights Trump Administration’s Restrictions On Transgender Troops While Legal Battle Continues
The Supreme Court justices lifted injunctions on the restrictions -- but that decision does not resolve the underlying legal question about banning many transgender people from the military. The plan, which is working through the lower courts, makes exceptions for about 900 transgender individuals who are already serving openly and for others who say they will serve in accordance with their birth gender.
The New York Times:
Supreme Court Revives Transgender Ban For Military Service
The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted the Trump administration’s request to allow it to bar most transgender people from serving in the military while cases challenging the policy make their way to the court. The administration’s policy reversed a 2016 decision by the Obama administration to open the military to transgender service members. It generally prohibits transgender people from military service but makes exceptions for those already serving openly and those willing to serve “in their biological sex.” (Liptak, 1/22)
Reuters:
Trump Transgender Troop Limits Can Take Effect, Top Court Decides
The decision, with the court's five conservative justices prevailing over its four liberals, granted the Trump administration's request to put on hold injunctions issued by federal judges against enforcement of the policy while a challenge to its legality continues in lower courts. The court did not resolve the underlying question of the legality of the Republican president's plan, which reversed the landmark 2016 policy of his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama to let transgender people for the first time serve openly in the armed forces and receive medical care to transition genders. (Chung, 1/22)
The Washington Post:
Supreme Court Allows Trump Restrictions On Transgender Troops In Military To Go Into Effect As Legal Battle Continues
The courts were considering a policy developed by then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who issued a plan to bar from the military those who identify with a gender different from their birth gender and are seeking to transition. Mattis’s plan makes exceptions for about 900 transgender individuals who are already serving openly and for others who say they will serve in accordance with their birth gender. (Barnes and Lamothe, 1/22)
NPR:
Supreme Court Revives Trump's Ban On Transgender Military Personnel, For Now
The transgender ban is being revived more than a year after a federal court in Washington, D.C., first blocked it in October 2017. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that trans members of the military had "a strong case that the president's ban would violate their Fifth Amendment rights," as NPR reported. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifted Kollar-Kotelly's injunction earlier this month, concluding that the ban had been substantially revised by the time it was instituted by former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in March 2018. But other federal courts had also ruled against the ban — and until Tuesday, those other injunctions remained in place. (Welna and Chappell, 1/22)
The Associated Press:
Q&A: Impact Of Supreme Court Decision On Transgender Troops
Some questions and answers about what the high court did. (1/23)
And Ruth Bader Ginsburg's recent surgery prompts this history of Supreme Court justices' health —
NPR:
From Cover-Ups To Secret Plots: The Murky History Of Supreme Justices' Health
For the first time in her 25-year career on the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not on the bench to start the new year. After the 85-year-old justice was operated on for lung cancer, she decided to work from home rather than return to the court two weeks after surgery. She's expected to make a full recovery and be back at the court soon. A fair amount is known about Ginsburg's cancers and surgery, but the history of Supreme Court justices and their health is murkier. (Totenberg, 1/23)
