D.C. Circuit on the Transgender Ban: "The Hegseth Policy is likely constitutional because it reflects a considered judgment of military leaders and furthers legitimate military interests"

Back in March, I wrote at length and in a spirit of considerable frustration about the idiotic ruling from District Court Judge Ana Reyes setting aside the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military service. I described it as “a judicial decision soaked in the language of social media influencers,” and as an example of “middle school first-draft language, a formal decision written in schoolyard colloquialisms.” My conclusion:

“This person is not a judge. Robes don’t make her one.”

Today, the D.C. Circuit Court rejected the insipid ruling from the horrible judge, staying her preliminary injunction. You can read that decision by clicking on this link, or by opening this PDF file:

Talbott V Usa Appellate Ruling

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Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, who are both Trump appointees, write that “decades of precedent establish that the judiciary must tread carefully when asked to second-guess considered military judgments of the political branches.”

The circuit court judges are not kind to Reyes, writing (among many other criticisms) that her decision “gave no sound reason for overriding the Secretary’s considered judgment.”

In a hyperemotional dissenting opinion, available in the same document, Judge Cornelia Pillard — an Obama appointee — writes on the basis of a ridiculous decade-old estimate that transgender servicemembers make up roughly one percent of armed forces personnel (which is not true at all, as I have written before), and that President Trump “tagged all transgender servicemembers as shameful, dishonest laggards too arrogant or selfish to serve,” which is very mean. Page 4 of the dissent: “In implementing the Hegseth Policy to exclude even current servicemembers, defendants double down on demeaning their own.” Emotional steering language defines the appeal, in a long list of adjectives. Page 9:

The very next paragraph finds that the Hegseth order on transgender service “espouses the same denigration and vitriol.” It’s a you’re-being-mean rant, expressing judicial feelings about not being nice: “The Hegseth Policy is not designed to further military objectives. It is designed to stigmatize and drive out an unwanted group.” Question for future research: Did Cornelia Pillard and Ana Reyes have the same writing instructor at some point?

Turning to military readiness, Pillard warns that transgender servicemembers are so numerous and operationally important that their loss will deplete the military, causing emotional harm to the American public: “The public interest suffers from the arbitrary and demoralizing depletion of our armed forces.”

I suspect we’ll survive the loss, which will now proceed without a judicial roadblock.