Judge Trashes DOJ Lawyers’ Attempts to Lie About Military Trans Ban
“You’re saying one thing in public. You’re saying a different thing in court,” Reyes said, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s post on social media that referred to the policy as a ban.
Earlier this week, Reyes had ruled that the Pentagon could not enforce the policy and had mischaracterized research and ignored evidence to support its conclusion to disallow transgender service members. Last week, Reyes stopped a hearing cold in its tracks so that the lawyers could actually read the studies mentioned, after she found that “virtually every” study cited in the ban contradicted support for Hegseth’s policy.
The judge noted in her ruling that the defense agreed that transgender people “can have the warrior ethos, physical and mental health, selflessness, honor, integrity, and discipline to ensure military excellence,” and that the government’s claims about their suitability for service were “pure conjecture.”