In a move intended to evade existing preliminary injunctions while reaffirming in its essential elements President Trump’s Twitter announcement from last July categorically prohibiting military service by transgender individuals, the Administration issued three new documents on Friday afternoon, March 23, the date that the President had designated in an August 2017 Memorandum for his announced policy to take effect. A new Presidential Memorandum “revoked” Trump’s August Memo and authorized the Defense and Homeland Security Secretaries … <Read More>
Lambda Legal
Trump Administration Defies Court Disclosure Order on Eve of Previously Announced Trans Military Policy Implementation Date
On August 25, 2017, President Donald J. Trump issued a Memorandum to the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, directing that effective March 23, 2018, transgender people would not be allowed to serve in the military. The Memorandum charged Defense Secretary James Mattis with the task of submitting an implementation plan to the White House by February 21. Mattis submitted something in writing on February 23, but its contents have not been made public.
Meanwhile, … <Read More>
U.S. Court Orders Idaho to Issue Birth Certificates to Transgender Applicants
U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Dale (D. Idaho), has ordered the state of Idaho to allow transgender people born there to obtain birth certificates correctly identifying them according to their gender identity. F.V. & Martin v. Barron, 2018 WL 1152405, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36550. Once Idaho has complied with Judge Dale’s March 5 Order, the only states where transgender people can’t get appropriate new birth certificates will be Ohio, Tennessee, and Kansas. Also, the … <Read More>
Oregon Court of Appeals Rules against Baker in “Gay Wedding Cake” Case
A unanimous three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals of Oregon affirmed a ruling by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) that Melissa and Aaron Klein, doing business as Sweetcakes by Melissa, violated the state’s public accommodations law by refusing to provide a wedding cake for Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer. The ruling upheld an award of $135,000 in damages, rejecting the Kleins’ argument that this application of the state law to them violates … <Read More>
Two Federal Judges Deal Setbacks to Trump’s Transgender Military Ban
Federal district judges on opposite coasts dealt setbacks to President Donald J. Trump’s anti-transgender military policy on December 11. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court in Washington, D.C., rejected a motion by the Justice Department in Doe v. Trump to stay her preliminary injunction that requires the Defense Department to allow transgender people to apply to join the service beginning January 1, 2018. And U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman refused to … <Read More>
Supreme Court Denies Review in Title VII Sexual Orientation Discrimination Case
The U.S. Supreme Court announced on December 11 that it will not review a decision by a three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on March 10 that a lesbian formerly employed as a security guard at a Georgia hospital could not sue for sexual orientation discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The full 11th Circuit denied a motion to reconsider the case … <Read More>
Another LGBT Case SCOTUS-Bound? Lambda Will Petition for Judicial Review of Ruling on Standing to Challenge Mississippi Statute
Mississippi enacted H.B. 1523 in 2016. The measure enshrines in state statutes a special privilege to discriminate for people whose religious or moral convictions oppose same-sex marriage and sexual relations outside of opposite-sex marriages, and who reject the idea that a person could have a gender identity different from their “biological sex” as identified through external observation of genitals at birth. As part of that special privilege, such individuals are immunized from any “discriminatory” … <Read More>
Former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Seeks Reversal of His Old Court’s Opinion
On June 30, the Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling claiming that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell marriage equality decision from June 2015 did not necessarily require state and local governments to treat same-sex and different-sex marriages the same for government employee benefits purposes. On September 15, asserting that his old court’s decision was clearly wrong, retired Texas Supreme Court Justice Wallace B. Jefferson and lawyers from his Austin firm, Alexander Dubose Jefferson & Townsend … <Read More>
Trump Changes Policy on Military Service by Transgender Individuals
On July 26, to the surprise of Defense Department officials and members of the White House staff, Donald Trump transmitted a series of three tweets beginning at 8:55 a.m. announcing a new policy concerning military service by transgender individuals. “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow…… ….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be … <Read More>
New York Appellate Division Rules on Controversial Custody Dispute Between Hasidic Father and Ex-Hasidic Lesbian Mother
The New York Appellate Division court in Brooklyn has unanimously reversed a trial judge’s decision to take away a formerly-Hasidic lesbian mother’s custody of her three children, finding, among other things, that the settlement agreement drafted by her ex-husband’s father at the time of their divorce imposed an unconstitutional requirement that she continue to observe the tenets of a Hasidic lifestyle as a condition of her custody of their children. The August 16 decision, issued … <Read More>