The first openly gay U.S. District Judge, Ana Reyes, spent hours questioning the Trump administration to determine how its military transgender policy would affect trans service members.
Shortly after taking office on January 21, President Trump signed an executive order outlining “trans-identifying medical standards for military service” and rescinding policies that undermined the military’s readiness.
Trump’s “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” executive order required that the “radical gender ideology” be expunged from all branches of the military. On November 25, 2024, the Times reported that Trump would sign an executive order that would declare 15,000 transgender service members unfit to serve on medical grounds. The order would also remove transgender military leaders from various ranks.
Subsequently, a civil rights group sued the Trump administration over the executive order alleging discrimination. It also claims that the order threatened national security and obliterated years of defense training investment.
Thus, Biden appointed Judge Reyes questioned the Trump administration to determine whether the executive order amounted to transgender ban and whether the administration perceived transgenderism as an ideology. She also wanted to know if transgender people, including the plaintiffs, would be removed from the military or their units.
“Can we agree that the greatest fighting force that world history has ever seen is not going to be impacted in any way by less than 1% of soldiers using a different pronoun than others might want to call them,” she asked Justice Department attorneys.
She also suggested transgenderism does not impact a soldier’s war-fighting abilities as pronoun use did not impact other service members.
“If you can find someone who will tell me we’re less prepared because we have to use pronouns for a few thousand people,” she said.
However, pronoun use can affect team spirit by causing conflicts over misgendering and wrong pronoun use. Additionally, transitioning individuals undergo months of intensive chemical treatment and surgeries that render them unable to deploy at a moment’s notice.
Trump’s executive order categorically states that our heroes should be “free of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization,” adding that “many mental and physical health conditions are incompatible with active duty” as they require “require substantial medication or medical treatment” and hospitalization.
Nonetheless, the Uruguayan-born American judge wanted to know how Trump’s executive order would be implemented. She threatened to grant a temporary restraining order if the Trump administration failed to guarantee that the plaintiffs would not be affected.
Claiming that “smarter people on the D.C. Circuit would have to tell me I’m wrong,” Reyes also added that the executive order’s assertion that only two genders exist is “not biologically correct.”
Meanwhile, when Trump announced he would issue the executive order, the Left claimed it would undermine enrolment when the military was struggling to meet its recruitment targets.
“It would also lead to a ban on trans people joining the military and would come at a time when almost all branches of the American armed forces are failing to meet recruitment targets.”
However, then Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth blamed wokeism for falling recruitment numbers, stating that the core military demographic took a wide berth at the military to avoid being subjected to the radical gender ideology.
“There aren’t enough lesbians in San Fransisco to man the 82nd Airborne Division,” Hegseth said.
“…if I wanted to do the woke cr*p, I could go to the local community college or local college. I don’t need it here.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump’s non-woke military has already shattered a 15-year recruitment record less than a month into his second presidency.
