The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals alleged Seattle’s Judge Pechman failed to give the policy sufficient deference and must reconsider the case.

President Trump triumphed in his efforts to ban transgender people from the military after the U.S. appeals court Friday ordered U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman to review her ruling.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals alleged Seattle’s Judge Pechman failed to give the policy sufficient deference after she ruled against the ban, saying it infringed on the constitutional rights of transgender service members and recruits.

Without ruling on the merits, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court said Pechman did not give the military’s judgment enough deference and ordered her to give it more.

Pechman is one of four federal judges to rule against Trump’s policy toward transgender military personnel.

In January, the Supreme Court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority, lifted lower court injunctions against the policy, while allowing legal challenges to continue.

The policy also allowed military personnel diagnosed with gender dysphoria — “the conflict between a person's physical gender and their identified gender” — under Obama’s policy to serve according to their gender identity.

In April 2018, Pechman extended her injunction to the revised policy, finding no evidence that transgender troops reduced the military’s effectiveness, and saying the ban undermined the dignity of those troops.

In March 2018, Trump backed a revised policy from then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that disqualified most transgender people with a history of gender dysphoria from military service, and people who have undergone gender transition steps.

On Friday, the appeals court said the revised policy “discriminates on the basis of transgender status” but was nevertheless “significantly different” from the 2017 ban. </s> A US appeals court handed President Donald Trump a victory in his effort to ban most transgender people from the military, ordering a judge to reconsider her ruling against the policy, which the US Supreme Court has allowed to take effect.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday set aside a ruling by US District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle, which said the ban likely violated the constitutional rights of transgender service members and recruits.

Without ruling on the merits, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court said Pechman did not give the military's judgment enough deference, and ordered her to give it more.

That finding could strengthen Trump's position, though the government still had the burden of justifying his policy.

Sharon McGowan, legal director of Lambda Legal, which represents opponents of the ban, said she believed the decision foreshadowed the eventual "vindication of the constitutional right of the transgender service members who have been harmed by this policy."

The US Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump, a Republican, announced the transgender ban in July 2017, saying the military needed to focus on "decisive and overwhelming victory" without being burdened by the "tremendous medical costs and disruption" of having transgender personnel.

The move marked an about-face from a landmark policy announced in 2016 by Democratic President Barack Obama, which let transgender people serve without fear of being discharged, and receive medical care to transition genders.

In March 2018, Trump backed a revised policy from then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that disqualified most transgender people with a history of gender dysphoria from military service, and people who have undergone gender transition steps.

On Friday, the appeals court said the revised policy "discriminates on the basis of transgender status" but was nevertheless "significantly different" from the 2017 ban.

"On the current record," the court said, "a presumption of deference is owed, because the 2018 policy appears to have been the product of independent military judgment." </s> (Reuters) - A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday handed President Donald Trump a victory in his effort to ban most transgender people from the military, ordering a lower court judge to reconsider her ruling against the policy, which the U.S. Supreme Court later allowed to take effect.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a ruling by U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle, which said the ban likely violated the constitutional rights of transgender recruits and service members.

While not ruling on the case’s merits, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court said Pechman did not give the military’s judgment enough weight, and ordered her to give it more deference. That finding could strengthen Trump’s position on transgender troops going forward.

In January, the Supreme Court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority, lifted lower court injunctions that blocked the ban on constitutional grounds from going into effect, while challenges to its legality continued in lower courts.

The Supreme Court did not address the legality of the Republican president’s ban, which reversed a landmark 2016 policy of his Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama.

That policy allowed transgender people for the first time to serve openly in the armed forces without fear of being discharged, and to receive medical care to transition genders.

Attorneys for the transgender service members who filed the lawsuit could not immediately be reached. A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice also could not be reached.

Pechman was one of four federal judges who ruled against the administration on the transgender troop ban, saying it likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantee.

Trump had announced the ban in July 2017, and has said the old policy led to “tremendous medical costs and disruption.”

In March 2018, Trump backed a revised policy from then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that banned, in some circumstances, transgender people with gender dysphoria, or distress resulting from internal conflict between physical gender and gender identity.

Mattis’ policy also banned transgender people who seek or have undergone gender transition steps. But it allowed people diagnosed with gender dysphoria during the Obama policy to stay in the military and serve according to their gender identity.

In April 2018, Pechman extended her injunction to the revised policy, finding no evidence that transgender troops reduced the military’s effectiveness, and saying the ban undermined the dignity of those troops.

She also said the new policy would “force transgender service members to suppress the very characteristic that defines them as transgender in the first place.”

In Friday’s decision, the appeals court said the 2018 policy “discriminates on the basis of transgender status” but was nevertheless “significantly different” from the 2017 ban.

It said that when reconsidering the government’s request to lift her injunction, Pechman “must apply appropriate military deference to its evaluation.”

The lawsuit was filed in August 2017 on behalf of current and aspiring Army and Navy personnel, including one stationed overseas with nearly 20 years of experience. Washington state later joined the plaintiffs. </s> (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court handed President Donald Trump a victory in his effort to ban most transgender people from the military, ordering a judge to reconsider her ruling against the policy, which the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to take effect.

Demonstrators gather to protest U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that he plans to reinstate a ban on transgender individuals from serving in any capacity in the U.S. military, at the White House in Washington, U.S. July 26, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst - RC12D641E1E0

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday set aside a ruling by U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle, which had said the ban likely violated the constitutional rights of transgender service members and recruits.

Without ruling on the merits, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court said Pechman did not give the military’s judgment enough deference, and ordered her to give it more.

That finding could strengthen Trump’s position, though the government still had the burden of justifying his policy.

Sharon McGowan, legal director of Lambda Legal, which represents opponents of the ban, said she believed the decision foreshadowed the eventual “vindication of the constitutional right of the transgender service members who have been harmed by this policy.”

Pechman is one of four federal judges to rule against Trump’s policy toward transgender military personnel.

In January, the Supreme Court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority, lifted lower court injunctions against the policy, while allowing legal challenges to continue.

Kelly Laco, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said that agency will continue defending the ban, which lets the Pentagon “continue implementing a personnel policy it determined necessary to best defend our nation.”

Trump, a Republican, announced the transgender ban in July 2017, saying the military needed to focus on “decisive and overwhelming victory” without being burdened by the “tremendous medical costs and disruption” of having transgender personnel.

The move marked an about-face from a landmark policy announced in 2016 by Democratic President Barack Obama, which let transgender people serve without fear of being discharged, and receive medical care to transition genders.

In March 2018, Trump backed a revised policy from then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that disqualified most transgender people with a history of gender dysphoria from military service, and people who have undergone gender transition steps.

Medical experts define gender dysphoria as distress from the internal conflict between physical gender and gender identity.

The policy also allowed those military personnel diagnosed with gender dysphoria under Obama’s policy to serve according to their gender identity.

In April 2018, Pechman extended her injunction to the revised policy, finding no evidence that transgender troops reduced the military’s effectiveness, and saying the ban undermined the dignity of those troops.

On Friday, the appeals court said the revised policy “discriminates on the basis of transgender status” but was nevertheless “significantly different” from the 2017 ban.

“On the current record,” the court said, “a presumption of deference is owed, because the 2018 policy appears to have been the product of independent military judgment.”

The government, nevertheless, still bore the burden of showing the policy significantly furthered its important interests, “and that is not a trivial burden,” the court added.

Friday’s decision related to an August 2017 lawsuit by current and aspiring Army and Navy personnel, including one stationed overseas with nearly 20 years of experience. Washington state later joined the plaintiffs. </s> Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.

A U.S. appeals court handed President Donald Trump a victory in his effort to ban most transgender people from the military, ordering a judge to reconsider her ruling against the policy, which the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to take effect. 



The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday set aside a ruling by U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle, which had said the ban likely violated the constitutional rights of transgender service members and recruits.

Without ruling on the merits, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court said Pechman did not give the military's judgment enough deference, and ordered her to give it more.That finding could strengthen Trump's position, though the government still had the burden of justifying his policy.Sharon McGowan, legal director of Lambda Legal, which represents opponents of the ban, said she believed the decision foreshadowed the eventual "vindication of the constitutional right of the transgender service members who have been harmed by this policy."Pechman is one of four federal judges to rule against Trump's policy toward transgender military personnel.In January, the Supreme Court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority, lifted lower court injunctions against the policy, while allowing legal challenges to continue.Kelly Laco, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said that agency will continue defending the ban, which lets the Pentagon "continue implementing a personnel policy it determined necessary to best defend our nation."Trump, a Republican, announced the transgender ban in July 2017, saying the military needed to focus on "decisive and overwhelming victory" without being burdened by the "tremendous medical costs and disruption" of having transgender personnel.The move marked an about-face from a landmark policy announced in 2016 by Democratic President Barack Obama, which let transgender people serve without fear of being discharged, and receive medical care to transition genders.In March 2018, Trump backed a revised policy from then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that disqualified most transgender people with a history of gender dysphoria from military service, and people who have undergone gender transition steps.Medical experts define gender dysphoria as distress from the internal conflict between physical gender and gender identity.The policy also allowed those military personnel diagnosed with gender dysphoria under Obama's policy to serve according to their gender identity.In April 2018, Pechman extended her injunction to the revised policy, finding no evidence that transgender troops reduced the military's effectiveness, and saying the ban undermined the dignity of those troops.On Friday, the appeals court said the revised policy "discriminates on the basis of transgender status" but was nevertheless "significantly different" from the 2017 ban."On the current record," the court said, "a presumption of deference is owed, because the 2018 policy appears to have been the product of independent military judgment."The government, nevertheless, still bore the burden of showing the policy significantly furthered its important interests, "and that is not a trivial burden," the court added. Friday's decision related to an August 2017 lawsuit by current and aspiring Army and Navy personnel, including one stationed overseas with nearly 20 years of experience. Washington state later joined the plaintiffs.

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For more information and to sign up, click here>> </s> (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Friday ordered a lower court judge to reconsider her ruling against U.S. President Donald Trump’s restrictions on transgender people serving in the military, a policy that had already been allowed to go into effect by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a decision by a federal judge in Seattle, Washington, which said Trump’s policy likely violated the constitutional rights of transgender recruits and service members.

The three-judge appeals court panel said a request by the administration to lift an injunction issued by U.S. Judge Marsha Pechman must be reconsidered because an outright ban on transgender troops that Trump had announced in 2017 had been revised by a 2018 policy crafted by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. The new policy was “significantly different,” the panel said.

In January, the Supreme Court lifted lower court injunctions blocking the transgender policy on constitutional grounds from going into effect while challenges to its legality continued in lower courts.

The high court did not resolve the underlying question of the legality of the Republican president’s plan, which reversed the landmark 2016 policy of his Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama, to let transgender people serve openly in the armed forces for the first time and to receive medical care to transition genders. </s> On Friday, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court ruling declaring that Donald Trump’s ban on transgender military service is unconstitutional. Its decision might seem like a setback for the service members challenging the policy—but it’s actually a qualified victory for transgender rights with sweeping ramifications in other cases.

After Trump announced his ban on trans military service via tweet in July 2017, four federal judges issued injunctions prohibiting its implementation. All four courts found the policy to be an unjustified violation of transgender Americans’ equal protection rights. In January, however, the Supreme Court lifted two of those injunctions by a 5–4 vote while the government appeals the rulings. The other two injunctions were eventually lifted in light of SCOTUS’s order, allowing the Pentagon to implement the ban. Meanwhile, appeals courts have continued to mull the policy’s constitutionality.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finally issued its decision on the matter Friday, vacating U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman’s 2018 ruling against the ban. This outcome in Karnoski v. Trump is no surprise, since the Supreme Court already lifted Pechman’s injunction. The 9th Circuit found that Pechman hadn’t properly assessed whether former Defense Secretary James Mattis’ final implementation plan shored up the legality of the ban by providing the “considered military judgment” absent from Trump’s impromptu tweets and the resulting scramble to rationalize them. Its decision in Karnoski also found that Pechman had improperly applied strict scrutiny, thereby giving insufficient deference to the commander in chief.

But the 9th Circuit didn’t stop there. It went on to explain that the trans ban does discriminate against transgender people—a fact contested by the administration, which insists that the policy only discriminates against people with gender dysphoria. (This distinction makes no sense.) Moreover, the court found that discrimination on the basis of transgender status constitutes sex-based discrimination and is therefore subject to intermediate scrutiny. That means anti-trans policies must be supported by an “exceedingly persuasive justification,” one not “hypothesized or invented post hoc in response to litigation.” It directed Pechman to apply this test to the trans troops ban.

What “exceedingly persuasive justification” might lie behind this policy? The Trump administration asserts that transgender service members “undermine readiness,” “erode reasonable expectations of privacy,” and “impose disproportionate costs.” These claims are demonstrably false. We know that because trans troops could already serve openly when Trump announced his ban, and none of these problems arose. These excuses were cooked up by anti-LGBTQ advocates in response to litigation against the ban, precisely what intermediate scrutiny forbids. The Trump administration’s justifications cannot be “exceedingly persuasive” if they are ungrounded in reality, discredited by experts, and disproved by experience.

Thus, Pechman is almost certain to conclude that the ban remains unconstitutional. In the meantime, Karnoski establishes precedent in the 9th Circuit, confirming that transgender discrimination is subject to intermediate scrutiny. The court will now apply this test to other trans cases—including Arizona’s effort to exclude transition-related care from its state health plan. ACLU attorney Joshua Block noted on Friday that he’ll cite this development in his effort to block Arizona’s discriminatory exclusion in court. Karnoski may also compel the 9th Circuit to rule that prisons must provide transition-related care to inmates in a case currently pending before the court.

The 9th Circuit encompasses Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, the Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, and Washington. Following Karnoski, any anti-trans law passed by these states and territories must survive intermediate scrutiny. Few will be able to clear this high bar. Yes, the Supreme Court’s conservatives may ultimately issue a devastating decision writing transgender people out of the Constitution if and when these cases come back to SCOTUS. They could also undermine the logic of Karnoski in next term’s LGBTQ employment discrimination cases; anything is possible with this far-right bloc in control. But until then, trans people in a huge chunk of the country will enjoy heightened protections against unjust discrimination. </s> Donald Trump plans to rescind his executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries and replace it with a new one, according to a Department of Justice court filing made Thursday.

“Rather than continuing this litigation, the President intends in the near future to rescind the Order and replace it with a new, substantially revised Executive Order to eliminate what the panel erroneously thought were constitutional concerns,” the justice department wrote in a brief to the ninth circuit court of appeals.

Enforcement of Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries has been suspended since a federal district judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order against it. The injunction was upheld by the ninth circuit court of appeals in a 9 February ruling.

The justice department filing argued that the ninth circuit should not reconsider its 9 February ruling against the travel ban but wait until the new order is released. 



The filing contradicted Trump’s own statements at an extraordinary press conference on Thursday, when the president lambasted the ninth circuit, calling it “a bad court” that had made “a bad decision”, and stating: “We are appealing that and we are going further.”

Trump later stated that the new executive order would “comprehensively protect our country” and would be “tailored to the decision we got down from the court”.

Trump’s remarks continued his ongoing war of words against the judiciary. “That circuit is in chaos, and that circuit is frankly in turmoil,” he said of the country’s largest appeals court.

He also twice cited a misleading statistic about the ninth circuit’s rate of having its rulings overturned, saying, “I’ve heard 80%. I find that hard to believe. That’s just a number I heard. That they’re overturned 80% of the time.”

The question of how many rulings the ninth circuit has had overturned has become a major talking point in rightwing media. On 9 February, Fox News host Sean Hannity called the ninth circuit “the most liberal court of appeals, the most overturned court in the country”, according to Politifact.

A blog post by rightwing outlet the Daily Caller put forward the “80% reversal rate at supreme court” figure, citing an analysis by the American Bar Association.

Both claims about the court are misleading, as fact-checking sites Snopes and Politifact have pointed out. The supreme court only reviews about 0.1% of all appeals court decisions each year. Of the cases that were taken up by the supreme court, the high court did reverse or vacate 80% of cases from the ninth circuit from 1999 to 2008. But those reversals represent a tiny fraction of the ninth circuit’s total decisions.

The ninth circuit is just the latest branch of the judiciary to feel the president’s ire. He referred to the federal district judge who initially granted the temporary injunction against his executive order as a “so-called judge” on Twitter. During the campaign, he also accused a judge presiding over a case involving his “university” of being biased due to his “Mexican heritage”.

Trump said the new executive order would be released sometime next week.

The Washington state attorney general’s office, which led the successful suit against the travel ban, tweeted that the justice department’s filing was “conceding defeat”. </s> June 14 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Friday ordered a lower court judge to reconsider her ruling against U.S. President Donald Trump's restrictions on transgender people from serving in the military, a policy that has already been allowed to go into effect by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a decision by federal judge in Seattle, Washington, which said Trump's policy likely violated the constitutional rights of transgender recruits and service members.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, without ruling on the merits, orders U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman (Seattle) to reconsider her ruling against the ban of most transgender people from the military, stating she did not give the military’s judgment enough deference.