At a CNN town hall leading up to the New Hampshire presidential primary, an audience member with military experience asked Senator Amy Klobuchar what she intended to do about the newly reinstated transgender military ban (link to video): “If elected, will you commit to overturning President Trump’s transgender military ban and providing gender-affirming health care […]

Although former defense secretary James Mattis didn’t include anything in his book Call Sign Chaos about the role he played in reinstating the military’s transgender ban, he was asked about it during a Time Magazine interview. He started off by saying that “it’s an issue that’s right now in the courts and I have to […]

The United States district court in Maryland has issued an opinion in one of the four challenges to Trump’s transgender military ban. We can expect to see additional rulings like this from time to time as cases move toward trial. The ban was officially reinstated on April 12, 2019 after the Supreme Court decided it […]

Vice Admiral Michael Gilday, just confirmed to be the new Chief of Naval Operations, was extremely clear in his testimony (at page 56) to the Senate about whether transgender military service and, more specifically, service by people who transition gender before or during service, has had any impact on readiness: Q: In your experience, has […]

The House of Representatives recently passed, on a bipartisan basis, an amendment to the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit discrimination in eligibility for military service and treatment while in military service. Modeled on President Harry Truman’s 1948 executive order to desegregate the military, the amendment, if enacted, would be the first time […]

As part of his Senate confirmation process for the position of Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley recently provided written answers to Senators’ Advance Policy Questions in addition to his live testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Below, the Palm Center comments on General Milley’s responses that address military service […]

A new Pew Research Center poll of U.S. military veterans found that 46% support inclusive policy that would allow transgender people to serve in the military, in comparison to the 64% of U.S. adults overall who support equal opportunity.  A few points of context to keep in mind if these numbers are cited as evidence […]

“Lethality” is a buzzword brought to the Department of Defense by former Secretary James Mattis (the last Senate-confirmed nominee), but it remains the all-purpose measure of military policy under the two (and counting) Acting Secretaries that have followed him. Building a “more lethal force” is the theme of our National Defense Strategy. Throughout the chain […]

The Department of Justice is now citing the transgender-military and Muslim-ban cases as authority in the census case, in support of the argument that it should be allowed to reverse-engineer new justifications for discriminatory policy when its rationalizations fail the first time, and also cut off any discovery into the old justifications.  This tactic of […]

Our entire democratic system is based on an assumption of trust and good faith in government decision making. If we can’t take government actors at their word, at least most of the time, everything breaks down. In upholding the Trump travel ban, the Supreme Court gave the benefit of the doubt to arguments from Department […]

Palm wrote about the University of Texas ROTC cadet, Map Pesqueira, who lost a scholarship when the transgender ban went into effect, here, here, and here. Recently Vox featured an interesting profile of a former ROTC cadet who lost a scholarship in 1992 because of the gay ban and how the financial impact continues today. […]

Every Positive Aspect of the Opinion Comes With a Poison Pill That Could Make It Meaningless. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an opinion on transgender service that was partly unexpected, given that the Supreme Court had already stepped in to let the Trump ban take effect for now, while legal challenges proceed. […]

During events in Normandy to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the Secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, gave an interview to Christine Amanpour of CNN. In an effort to justify why Trump’s Defense Department switched to a ban on transgender military service, he managed to carelessly disregard the contributions of the 85% of the […]

Two years after a string of presidential tweets set a ban on transgender military service in motion, fifteen months after the former secretary of defense backfilled an after-the-fact justification for those tweets, and two months after the ban took effect, the Department of Defense has now conceded that the ban works by treating transgender people […]

Here is a column from Just Security that lists questions defense reporters would like to ask about transgender policy, for example: “The U.S. military currently has 14,000 transgender troops serving openly. Has their service had any negative consequences on the military’s readiness or morale?” Patrick Shanahan led the Pentagon group that was assigned to clean […]

It became clear yesterday that Army leadership intends to backfill hypothetical justifications for DOD’s new transgender ban without evidence, following in the footsteps of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who did the same thing in an effort to “fix” President Trump’s tweeted ban. General James McConville is the nominee to become the next Chief […]

Don’t be fooled by today’s Washington Post article written by faculty from the U.S. Naval Academy and Dartmouth College, entitled “What do military service members think about diversity — especially gender diversity — in their ranks?” It is pitched as relevant to the transgender military policy debate, but it has NOTHING to do with it. […]

We’re seeing media headlines suggesting National Guard defiance of the Pentagon’s transgender ban, along the lines of “Five States Say They’ll Let Trans Troops Serve in National Guard.” But the headlines don’t quite get the story right. There is no defiance going on.  Guard leaders are saying they will use the discretion given under the […]

One interesting piece of information in this report is that the Army plans to hand out new dandy uniforms only after completion of basic training and initial specialty training. Why? Because during that period—measured in months—15% of enlistees drop out.  (On average, approximately one-third of enlistees fail to complete their initial term.)  But by all means, […]

There ought to be some rational explanation for why Map Pesqueira, a transgender cadet already enrolled in ROTC, was dismissed despite DOD’s promise to protect people currently in officer training from the ban. But there isn’t a rational explanation. The ROTC policy failed, and DOD is holding firm in refusing to explain (or simply not […]

  The transgender ban started injuring people so fast.  Why? Because, from DOD’s perspective, it doesn’t need to consider the accomplishments and potential that earned this cadet a military scholarship at a top national university.  It doesn’t need to consider whether he is a strong performer in ROTC. It doesn’t need to consider whether gender […]

Map Pesquiera is a UT Austin ROTC student who is the first known casualty of Trump’s transgender ban. The Pentagon promised that the ban would not hurt transgender Americans who are already serving in the military or in officer training programs. It took one day for this baseless assertion to be exposed as a falsehood. […]