Feelz Jurisprudence Marries Hugs Fascism

and what a disturbing couple they make

It won’t be news to anyone that the federal judiciary has decided Donald Trump has no authority as President of the United States but to serve and protect the status quo, absolutely without deviation. Change is unconstitutional. Policy is unconstitutional. But even by that standard, today has been very special.

Without digging into all the details about everything, skim your way through a single judicial decision to begin to see what’s happening: the decision from District Court Judge Ana Reyes, ordering the Department of Defense to allow the continued service of transgender military personnel. You can click here to read it, or open the PDF file below.

Transgender Military Ruling

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This is not a judicial decision. I mean, it is a judicial decision, but it doesn’t represent judicial culture or a judicial outlook. At all. It’s a bitchy schoolgirl essay about being fair and not being mean, with healthy doses of platitudinous foot stompery. Screenshot, bottom of page one and top of page two:

“Today, however, our military is stronger and our Nation is safer for the millions of such blanks (and all other persons) who serve.” Because she says so, is why. The old bigoted American military was very weak. I don’t remember: Did the old dumb bigots ever even win any wars or anything?

They didn’t hug a single transgender person on their way to that beach! That’s why they lost that one war, I think. I forget which one it was. (It was in the Old Times.)

Our military is much stronger now than it was when gay and transgender service wasn’t warmly encouraged, the end. (Stomps foot.) It’s a TikTok video formatted to look like a, you know, a judge thing. You can even agree with the judge and see that she hasn’t made an argument. “Today, however, our military is stronger.” Like when we beat the Taliban, or all the other wars we’ve won lately. This is the declarative reality in which a thing becomes true because you type it.

Now, watch this. Watch Judge Ana Reyes roll right over herself without noticing that she’s doing it. You don’t have to read past page two to see this.

On page one, she characterizes the reasoning — the premise the administration advanced to forbid military service by transgender personnel: “Service by transgender persons is ‘inconsistent’ with this mission because they lack the ‘requisite warrior ethos’ to achieve ‘military excellence.’” That’s it, those mean monsters! That’s their whole reason! They said trans people can’t serve because of, I don’t know, some stupid ethos thing. What does that even mean?

Then, one whole page later — page two, for those of you who are keeping score at home — she rolls her eyes at the administration’s argument:

Not at all, say Defendants. They assert that the Military Ban is necessary because transgender persons undermine “military readiness” and disrupt “[u]nit cohesion, good order, and discipline.” Dkt. 81 (Opp.) at 40–54. Being transgender is “inconsistent” with “high standards for Service member readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.” Hegseth Policy at 3. Gender ideology activists are “unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion.”

So suddenly it’s not a vague half-argument about ethos: It’s an argument about readiness, health, lethality, cohesion. It’s an argument about being able to go to war. Weird that a military organization would make arguments like that.

Keep reading. Look at the rhetorical style. Page 3: “Plaintiffs beg to differ. And differ they can.” Ooh, snap!

Damn, girl! Slay, kween!

Literally a judicial decision soaked in the language of social media influencers. Our judges aren’t judges.

Transgender military service began for the first time in the US at the end of the Obama administration, in 2016, and was never allowed before then, so we can evaluate at least a 240-year history of the US military functioning in the absence of transgender servicemembers, if we skip the colonial past. But Reyes concludes, I’m not making this up, that the history of transgender service proves that trans soldiers are very strong and capable. Page 4:

Transgender persons have served openly since 2021, but Defendants have not analyzed their service. That is unfortunate. Plaintiffs’ service records alone are Exhibit A for the proposition that transgender persons can have the warrior ethos, physical and mental health, selflessness, honor, integrity, and discipline to ensure military excellence. Defendants agree. They agree that Plaintiffs are mentally and physically fit to serve, have “served honorably,” and “have satisfied the rigorous standards” demanded of them. Tr. (Feb. 18, 2025) at 9–14, 148; see also Tr. (Mar. 12, 2025) at 130. Plaintiffs, they acknowledge, have “made America safer.” Tr. (Feb. 18, 2025) at 10. So why discharge them and other decorated soldiers? Crickets from Defendants on this key question.

“Crickets from.” Judges write like this. Well, okay: law clerks write like this, but judges put their names on it. I ain’t hearin’ nothin’ but crickets from y’all, says…the judiciary.

Page 4, and into page 5:

Plaintiffs have also introduced declarations from the military leaders responsible for integrating transgender persons into open military service. Each declarant attests that our military has not fallen into an “existential” crisis since transgender persons began serving openly in 2021. Nor have our “lethal and effective” soldiers come unglued when asked to use preferred pronouns, which the Hegseth Policy also bans. To the contrary, they each testify that recruiting, unit cohesion, and military readiness have improved since 2021.

“Come unglued.” Middle school first-draft language, a formal decision written in schoolyard colloquialisms. Nobody’s, like, come unglued, what’s the like big deal? Judge Moon Unit Zappa is hanging out at the mall. And look at the fact claims, for crying out loud, as each military leader asked to speak on the topic has testified “that recruiting, unit cohesion, and military readiness have improved since 2021.” They’ve improved in the last few months, is the reality. Newsweek headline from the summer of 2024:

But hey, great news: Judges get to just make shit up and use their invented reality to reach a decision.

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

We’re living through an unreal moment of…no. A great shrugging off. Of political, legal, and cultural systems simply announcing, peremptorily, that change will not be permitted. The barrier will be breached. This culture of witless obduracy lives on no form of reason or wisdom, it makes nothing, it’s a quagmire of empty emotional expression and platitudinous question begging, and it can’t be sustained.