Context added later: this is from a hearing on the Rump administration’s ban on trans people in the military in U.S. District Court (District of Columbia). OF COURSE, whiny manbabies are all filing complaints against her excellent and appropriate conduct because a lady was mean to them and hurt their feewings and Rump wants an INVESTIGASHUN.
From a transcript shared by Rebecca Solnit on FB, and elsewhere, so I’m going to assume that it is a true and accurate transcript:
Judge Reyes: EO 14183 adopts the definitions of a separate executive order called Defending Women from Gender Ideology, Extremism and Restoring biological Truth to the federal government. And that EO states, “sex shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.” And it states that, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.” Do you see that or do you remember that?
Jason C. Lynch: will take the court’s word for it.
Judge Reyes: You understand, as a matter of biology, it’s just incorrect that there are only two sexes, right?
Jason C. Lynch: Do I understand that to be incorrect as a biological matter?
Judge Reyes: Yes. It is incorrect as a biological matter. You understand that, right?
Jason C. Lynch: I don’t understand that to be incorrect.
Judge Reyes: You understand that not everyone has an xx or an xy chromosome, right?
Jason C. Lynch: Honestly, no, I don’t.
Judge Reyes: It’s actually kind of a really important point because this executive order is premised on an assertion that’s not biologically correct. There are anywhere near about 30 different intersex examples. So someone who does not have just xx or xy chromosome is not just male or female. They’re intersex. And there are over 30 potential different intersex examples. We’ve got genetic differences. We have people with xxx chromosomes. We have androgen insensitivity, xy genetically, that may have female external sex characteristics and internally have testes. There’s a five alpha reductase deficiency that causes changes in testosterone metabolism, xy that may have female external genitalia or ambiguous genitalia.
The point being, and I’m happy to have you guys brief this more if you want, but I’m telling you right now that there are people who are neither male or female. And so the premise of the executive order is just incorrect.
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The following posts are all from Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social:
“Every single pronoun in the history of mankind has been invented.” – Reyes’s response to this part of the EO:
(b) The Secretary shall promptly issue directives for DoD to end invented and identification-based pronoun usage to best achieve the policy outlined in section 2 of this order.
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Reyes asks if there is current discrimination against transgender people, and the most DOJ’s Lynch will say is, “I am sure they can find an instance of discrimination.”
Reyes then reads a list of Trump administration actions against transgender people in its first month.
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Reyes goes off.
“You cannot tell me that transgender people are not being discriminated against.” Of the Stonewall website deletion, Reyes says, “We are literally erasing their contributions to modern society. … It screams animus.”
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Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote.bsky.social
Another fiery exchange from Judge Reyes in the trans military case:
REYES: [The order] calls an entire category of people dishonest, dishonorable, undisciplined, immodest, who lack integrity, people who have taken an oath to defend this country, people who have been under fire, people who have received medals for taking fire for this country. I want to know from the government whether that language expresses ‘animus.’ Does that express animus?
DOJ ATTORNEY: Not in any constitutional –
REYES: In a commonsense way. This is a policy from the President of the United States affecting thousands of people … to call an entire group of people, lying dishonest people who are undisciplined, immodest and have no integrity. How is that anything other than showing animus?
DOJ ATTORNEY: I don’t have an answer for you.
REYES: You do have an answer, you just don’t want to give it… People can make solid arguments as to why some or even most transgender people shouldn’t be in the military … We’re dealing with unadulterated animus. We are dealing with the president of the United States dealing with a group of people serving their country … calling them liars.
(Reyes then said she changed her courtroom orders to bar people who graduated from UVA law school from appearing before her because “they’re all liars and lack integrity and are undisciplined and can’t possibly meet the high rigors of being a lawyer for the government”
She made the DOJ lawyer sit down on that basis, then after he did, she called him back up and asked whether that was a display of animus.)
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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social
Quite an exchange here between Judge Reyes and DOJ attorney on how “pronoun usage” affects military readiness.
REYES: Can we agree that the greatest fighting force… is not going to be impacted in any way by less than 1 percent of the soldiers using a different pronoun than others might want to call them?
DOJ ATTORNEY: I can’t agree with that here.
REYES: Would you agree with me that if our military is negatively impacted in any kind of way that matters … We all have a lot bigger problems than pronoun use. We have a military that is incompetent. Any common sense rational human being knows that it doesn’t.
It is pretext. It is frankly ridiculous. If you want to get me an officer of the U.S. military who is willing to get on the stand and say that because of pronoun usage the U.S. military is less prepared because of pronoun usage. I will be the first to give you a box of cigars.
Haddayr Copley-Woods 