I remember not that long ago that a principal argument against allowing gay Americans to serve openly in the military was that it would disrupt unit cohesion. You don't hear that very much any more, but I do wonder how unit cohesion is holding up now that the Supreme Court has determined that the administration can ban transgender citizens from serving while their appeals crawl slowly through the tangles of an increasingly radical federal judicial system. From The New York Times:



The policy, announced on Twitter by President Trump and refined by the defense secretary at the time, Jim Mattis, generally prohibits people identifying with a gender different from their biological sex from military service. It makes exceptions for several hundred transgender people already serving openly and for those willing to serve “in their biological sex.” Challenges to the policy have had mixed success in the lower courts. Trial judges around the nation issued injunctions blocking it, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, is expected to rule soon on whether to affirm one of them.



"It is with great reluctance that we seek such emergency relief in this court,” Mr. Francisco wrote. “Unfortunately, this case is part of a growing trend in which federal district courts, at the behest of particular plaintiffs, have issued nationwide injunctions, typically on a preliminary basis, against major policy initiatives.” “Such injunctions previously were rare, but in recent years they have become routine,” he wrote. “In less than two years, federal courts have issued 25 of them, blocking a wide range of significant policies involving national security, national defense, immigration and domestic issues.”



This, of course, is in regard to how the federal district courts keep frustrating the renegade presidency* for which Francisco labors. If this decision, by the customary 5-4 margin, is an indication of the majority's thinking, one of the only formal avenues for institutional resistance to that presidency* may be closing down.

An activist waves a transgender flag. Boston Globe Getty Images

And, getting back to unit cohesion, there already are trans people serving in the military. This decision can't do much for their security, either.



But lawyers for current and prospective members of the military challenging the policy said there was no need to upend the status quo while the case proceeded. “Transgender people have been serving openly in all branches of the United States military since June 2016, including on active duty in combat zones,” their brief said. “Transgender individuals have been permitted to enlist in the military since January 2018.” “The government has presented no evidence that their doing so harms military readiness, effectiveness or lethality,” the brief said. The hundreds of people grandfathered in under the new policy, the brief added, “cannot be squared with the government’s claims of urgency to eliminate all other transgender personnel.”



Once again, to feed the brain-fever of its all-powerful base, the administration* decides to do reckless damage to people's lives. I'll be glad when the executive branch isn't being run by News Corp anymore.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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