Another judge in the same courthouse temporarily blocked implementation of two provisions in another Trump order that threaten trans women's
Chris Geidner at Law Dork:
A Justice Department lawyer on Tuesday afternoon insisted that, even if President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to bar transgender people from the military was motivated by animus, the Pentagon should still be allowed to implement it. The claim from DOJ Special Litigation Counsel Jean Lin drew a surprised response from U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who suggested past cases, including 1996’s Romer v. Evans, strongly counsel otherwise. [...]
Both judges, Reyes and U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, appeared to come away from their engagement on the issues Tuesday with substantial — if not yet determinative — skepticism of Trump’s anti-trans actions. Reyes, a Biden appointee who was born in Uruguay in the 1970s and moved to the United States as a child, is a lesbian who is the first out LGBTQ person on the federal district court in D.C. Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, was born in the 1940s, appointed to the federal bench before Reyes graduated from high school, and took senior status more than a decade ago. At 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, following a hearing earlier in the day, Lamberth issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking the Trump administration for now from implementing either of two provisions in his January 20 executive order defining “sex” that relate to prisons. One would block trans women from women’s prisons, and the other would prohibit trans people from receiving gender-affirming medical care. [...]
The military case
Soon after Reyes, a Biden appointee, set a schedule for briefing on the preliminary injunction request filed Monday in the military case, which would have arguments begin at 10 a.m. February 18, the case took a turn. The plaintiffs soon thereafter Tuesday filed for more expedited relief — a motion for a TRO — after receiving word that a trans woman in military training in South Carolina was removed from the women’s barracks and told that she “is already being administratively separated based on the Order,” as the plaintiffs discussed in their legal filing supporting their TRO motion. [...] When Lin still wouldn’t budge, Reyes then moved on to the question of whether the order was motivated by animus, noting Trump’s campaign statement that he would “stop the transgender lunacy.” When Lin responded, “I don’t have an answer,” Reyes moved to the executive order’s language that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.“ Lin told Reyes, “You’re putting me in a difficult position,” a statement that led Reyes to shoot back that there are often difficult questions in the practice of law and that that is why we went to law school.
Jean Lin got rekt by Judge Ana Reyes during the Talbott v. Trump hearing, the case that deals with Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order that bans trans people from the military (EO 14183).
See Also:
LGBTQ Nation: Federal judge mocks Donald Trump’s “frankly ridiculous” trans military ban
The Advocate: Federal judge roasts Trump DOJ attorney over ‘frankly ridiculous’ claims in transgender military ban case
Wonkette: President Bone Spurs’ Anti-Trans Military Order Epically Scorched In Court
