Blog

The Resistance Brief: This week in the fight for justice 

For the record 

Blog by Ricardo Martinez (he/him), Executive Director

Earlier in the week, I attended a federal court hearing in our case challenging the Trump administration’s ban on transgender service members (Talbott v. Trump). At the hearing, we argued for a Preliminary Injunction to block the Order’s enforcement, allow transgender people to continue to enlist and serve on the same terms as all people who want to serve their country and meet the rigorous standards to do so, and resume transgender service members’ access to medical care.

During day two of the hearing, the judge asked U.S. Attorney Jason Lynch if he agreed that transgender people have been discriminated against. U.S. Attorney Jason Lynch concurred that trans people have experienced discrimination, but he did not believe the discrimination proves trans people are a quasi-suspect class subject to protection under the Constitution.

What followed reminded me of a couple of things I forgot to note in last week’s Resistance Brief: Why the Courts Still Matter: the importance of the public record and the courage of plaintiffs.

Courts keep permanent records of their proceedings which means that as cases are litigated, history is being recorded. 

Forever, it will be noted that the court responded to Lynch’s assertion by stating all the ways transgender people have been harmed by their country over the last three weeks. She spoke about how the president has tried to block schools from using federals funds to discuss transgender people, stop the State Department from allowing transgender people to obtain passports with correct gender markers, change the references to LGBTQ on government websites – including the Stonewall Monument website – to remove the T and Q, ban trans girls and women from participating in sports, direct trans people in prison be denied correct housing and withheld necessary healthcare, and stop trans people from accessing homeless shelters.

By the end of her enumeration, she had half the attendees at the hearing in tears, including me. The pronouncement of facts, antithetical to a political landscape anchored in disinformation and cognitive dissonance, was profoundly moving and validating. In that moment it was hard to not think about all trans and nonbinary people who I love and how they have been harmed.

As a matter of record, it will forever be recorded that upon judicial review, someone with power voiced the totality of the systematic targeting of transgender people across American institutions and mirrored it back to the world and our courageous plaintiffs who sat quietly in the court room.

Those brave service members who bore witness to a hearing where people weighed their humanity, minimized the harm of presidential decrees, and debated their rights left the court room with their heads held high. I think that is because they are clear about who they are and the role they play in protecting a country they love, even when that country is not protecting them back. Nicolas Talbott, one of our plaintiffs, said leaving the court room on Tuesday, “The fact that I am transgender has no bearing on my dedication to the mission, my commitment to my unit, or my ability to perform my duties in accordance with the high standards expected of me. Every individual must meet the same objective and rigorous qualifications to serve. When you put on the uniform, differences fall away, and what matters is your ability to do the job.” 

Hear, hear, Second Lieutenant Talbott, hear, hear.

Four recent wins:

• On February 20, the Vermont House unanimously passed, with bipartisan support, a bill that will streamline the process for LGBTQ+ parents to confirm their legal relationship to their children. The bill now moves to the state Senate.
  
• On February 12, a federal judge granted our request to expand our case on behalf of New Hampshire transgender high school students Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle to challenge President Trump’s executive orders banning transgender girls from participating in school sports.

• On Tuesday February 19, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in our case representing three incarcerated transgender women at risk of being transferred to a men’s facility and having their necessary medical care stopped. This blocks the Bureau of Prisons from enforcing against our clients President Trump’s first Executive Order attempting to deny the existence of transgender people, while our case against it continues. We are moving to protect as many of the transgender women in the women’s facilities as we can, and are adding anyone we hear from in the same circumstances.

• Also on February 19, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Massachusetts public school’s policy supporting transgender students. GLAD Law submitted a friend-of-the-court brief with the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents describing how a positive school climate is crucial to educational success for all students.

What to know, what to do: 

• Read this ABC News coverage of the hearing on a Preliminary Injunction in Talbott v. Trump.
• Watch plaintiff Nicolas Talbot’s interview segment on Fox News Digital (yes, you read that right).
• Check out this page tracking GLAD Law’s challenges to Executive Orders, as well as challenges from other movement organizations.
• Sign up to receive updates on GLAD Law’s work for LGBTQ+ justice.

Read more editions of the Resistance Brief.