WA A.G. Nick Brown Mounts Defense of Trans Military Personnel

Washington A.G. Nick Brown is once again at cross purposes with the Trump administration.

According to Brown, the president's actions amount to a futile culture war, waged at the expense of our service members. In an amicus brief filed Wednesday, Brown writes that Trump's Jan. 28 executive order not only flies in the face of constitutional principles. It undercuts American military prowess:

Without providing any evidence-based rationale for doing so, [the executive order] again pulls the rug out from under service members who have served with honor and distinction. And it entangles the Amici States in a discriminatory policy fundamentally at odds with their own experiences in enacting and enforcing laws protecting transgender individuals.

 

 

Their experience shows that allowing transgender individuals to participate fully in society, including the military, benefits Amici States and the nation. The executive order is unconstitutional and harms national security.

The brief has nearly two dozen coauthors, most of them blue-state attorneys general. They heartily support Shilling v. Trump, a lawsuit named for U.S. Navy Commander Emily Shilling, pictured above, and filed in response to Trump's EO.

The executive order is titled "Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness." The decree poses trans identity as a dangerous distraction our military can ill afford:

Expressing a false 'gender identity' divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.

 

Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, 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.  A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.

Trump has since taken it a step or three further, directing the Pentagon to expel waiver-less trans personnel. (Click here for more.) Brown has yet to respond, legally or otherwise.