Latest news with #Shilling
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘I'm Heartbroken': A Trans Military Commander Confronts Trump's Ban
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of President Donald Trump, clearing the path for the administration to move forward with its plan to ban transgender people from serving in the military. The plan would also remove current transgender service members as the lower courts continue to debate the legality of the ban. The Supreme Court order is not a final ruling on the issue, but will remain in place as litigation proceeds. Approximately how many service members will be impacted is unclear. Recent figures from the Defense Department reported 4,240 — or 0.2 percent — of about 2 million service members have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Data from previous years by advocacy groups has calculated the number to be much higher, at around 15,000. Among those transgender service members is Commander Emily Shilling, who has served in the Navy for almost two decades. A naval aviator with over 60 combat missions under her belt, she is the lead plaintiff suing the administration to overturn the ban. Shilling told Women Rule that it's her duty not only to follow lawful orders but to challenge those she believes to be unlawful. Trump unveiled the plan in an executive order on inauguration day. The basis for the order, which Trump also enacted during his first term, is the argument that gender dysphoria is incompatible with military service. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes — a Joe Biden appointee — blocked the move on March 18, but the ruling was subsequently paused by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. A second judge, George W. Bush appointee U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle, also blocked the order 10 days later. The Supreme Court ruling was unveiled in a one-page order, with the three liberal judges dissenting. Neither side provided reasoning for their positions given it was an emergency appeal. 'I'm heartbroken,' said Shilling, who is president of SPARTA Pride, a nonprofit advocacy group for transgender service members. Now, Shilling's future, along with many other transgender service members, is riddled with uncertainty. Women Rule spoke with Shilling about the SCOTUS decision, its impacts and her experience serving as a high ranking official in the U.S. Navy. She stressed that her views do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense or the Navy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You've been fighting against Trump's military ban since he signed the executive order. Now that the SCOTUS decision has been released, how do you feel? My oath, as any military officer would tell you, is to the Constitution of the United States and to follow all lawful orders. And so right now, I'm following lawful orders. I'm being kicked out. I will follow what I'm being told. But it's also my duty to challenge anything that I feel is an unlawful order. And the only way for me to do that is to sue, because I can't go storm off. I have to use the legal system, which is why it's there. So I am performing my duty. I am challenging something that I believe to be an unlawful order, and we'll let the courts decide. We were hoping that the Supreme Court would go to a shadow docket and make a decision that was kind of final. That way we can all just move on with our lives, either we're banned and we can go get our new jobs, figure out where we're going to live, figure out how to pick up the pieces, or we're not banned, and we get to continue to serve and do what we love. Instead, we got kind of a non-answer, and we got the protections that we did have stripped away from us. We had this injunction in place that allowed people to stay deployed, allowed people to continue with their careers. I had individuals who were about to take over command of places, and then the ban happened, and they got pulled off of those things. And that person lost the opportunity to command, and their career is irrevocably damaged. Thousands of people will be kicked out of the military, and then if the lower courts decide 'Oops, that's a mistake,' what are we going to do? Invite them all back? What's your plan these next few months? This fight right now is purely legal. We hope that we will have a more favorable administration or Congress at some point, and then we can step up the advocacy side again, working on public opinion, working on congressional opinion, and hopefully get trans and so many other rights codified into law. So for Emily Shilling, the next few months are going to continue to be this world of uncertainty: Do I have a job? Do I not? Am I going to continue with the Navy? Am I not? It's a hard place to live in. I have the privilege and luck that my partner is, she's an O-5 in the military too. She makes good pay, and we can live on her salary, and she's not at threat of losing our job. But there are a lot of troops who aren't in that situation, and they're going to be hurting like so many Americans are right now. Recent administrations have sort of flip-flopped on this issue. Trump instituted a ban in his first term, which Biden revoked, and now Trump's bringing it back. How do you think that impacts young transgender people's willingness to serve? Well, I feel it's devastating. It's not only devastating to the trans individual, but to all their friends and their allies. Studies have shown that the mass majority of our youth support the LGBT community, and are they going to want to work or serve for an organization that doesn't reflect those values? I got called to the Navy because the motto at the time when I joined was, 'A global force for good,' and I truly believed that, and I'm very proud of the service that I've done. In my entire adult life I've encouraged my kids to go into the military. When I've talked to people, I've told them that they've given me so much, and I'm such a better person for having served. At this moment I can't give that advice [in] good conscience, and I truly hope, and I choose to hope and believe that our military will prevail in the end, and we will show what honor and courage and commitment look like, and we will stay true to our values, and we will be a service worth serving for. Why do you think the Trump administration continues to target transgender military members? I don't want to get ahead of the president, and I don't want to really speak for him, because it's not my place to make any kind of judgment on his character or on his policies; he's my boss. But I think in the grander scheme, there's always some population that is vilified, that has turned into the boogeyman. And the arguments are always the same. They were: 'Oh, it's going to destroy morale in the units. Oh, it's going to cost too much. Oh, it'll be a distraction.' And every single time, we have been shown that it's just not the case. I was in the service when 'don't ask, don't tell' was repealed. I remember sitting on the fantail smoking cigars with my friends and them thinking it was just the end of the world if we let gay people serve in the military, that the military will just disintegrate, and it just isn't the case. We're here over a decade later, and the military is still strong. It's going to be the same thing with trans individuals. It's just going to take time for the world to catch up. You've talked in the past about how transitioning helped you become a better leader and a stronger asset to the military. In 2016 when I was a test pilot, I was at the peak of my career living my dream. And I didn't come out when I could, because I wanted to keep flying, and I didn't want to put my squadron down a person. So I waited. And by the time that I could come out, the ban was put in place the first time. And that left me distracted, it left me angry. It left me unable to connect with individuals because I was only bringing in 60, 70 percent of myself to work. The rest of that energy was dealing with putting a mask on and being somebody I'm not. So when I finally did come out, I'm now showing up to work completely authentic. I'm showing up at 100 percent and I'm able to actually meet people where they are with a little bit of empathy. Before I came out, I was a 36-year-old white man, married, three kids, two cars, a dog, a house, and I didn't think racism existed. I didn't think sexism existed. I didn't see any of them because I never experienced them. And when I got put into one of the most despised groups in the country right now or vilified groups, the transgender community, I'm hearing this bigotry and this transphobia, and it really opened my eyes that maybe I didn't have it all right, and just because I hadn't seen or experienced it myself, maybe I was wrong. I learned so much that I had never seen or been willing to see. I'm able to connect with my people in a way that I've never been able to. And that is true leadership. You've served for almost two decades now. Why was it important for you to serve in the first place? And how has service impacted you? People always say, 'Thank you for your service,' and all I can ever say back is 'No, thank you to the service for letting me serve.' I graduated college, I started working as an engineer, and I wanted some adventure. I wanted to do something that I felt meant something. When we were in Afghanistan, the thing that drove me was women's rights. And I was very proud of what we were doing. I'm heartbroken. I've watched something that I've dedicated so much energy and so much time to and so much love to. It was the honor of a lifetime to serve in the U.S. Navy, and I just hope that they live up to the sacrifice that we've made.
Politico
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Politico
‘I'm Heartbroken': A Trans Military Commander Confronts Trump's Ban
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of President Donald Trump, clearing the path for the administration to move forward with its plan to ban transgender people from serving in the military. The plan would also remove current transgender service members as the lower courts continue to debate the legality of the ban. The Supreme Court order is not a final ruling on the issue, but will remain in place as litigation proceeds. Approximately how many service members will be impacted is unclear. Recent figures from the Defense Department reported 4,240 — or 0.2 percent — of about 2 million service members have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Data from previous years by advocacy groups has calculated the number to be much higher, at around 15,000. Among those transgender service members is Commander Emily Shilling, who has served in the Navy for almost two decades. A naval aviator with over 60 combat missions under her belt, she is the lead plaintiff suing the administration to overturn the ban. Shilling told Women Rule that it's her duty not only to follow lawful orders but to challenge those she believes to be unlawful. Trump unveiled the plan in an executive order on inauguration day. The basis for the order, which Trump also enacted during his first term, is the argument that gender dysphoria is incompatible with military service. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes — a Joe Biden appointee — blocked the move on March 18, but the ruling was subsequently paused by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. A second judge, George W. Bush appointee U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle, also blocked the order 10 days later. The Supreme Court ruling was unveiled in a one-page order, with the three liberal judges dissenting. Neither side provided reasoning for their positions given it was an emergency appeal. 'I'm heartbroken,' said Shilling, who is president of SPARTA Pride, a nonprofit advocacy group for transgender service members. Now, Shilling's future, along with many other transgender service members, is riddled with uncertainty. Women Rule spoke with Shilling about the SCOTUS decision, its impacts and her experience serving as a high ranking official in the U.S. Navy. She stressed that her views do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense or the Navy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You've been fighting against Trump's military ban since he signed the executive order. Now that the SCOTUS decision has been released, how do you feel? My oath, as any military officer would tell you, is to the Constitution of the United States and to follow all lawful orders. And so right now, I'm following lawful orders. I'm being kicked out. I will follow what I'm being told. But it's also my duty to challenge anything that I feel is an unlawful order. And the only way for me to do that is to sue, because I can't go storm off. I have to use the legal system, which is why it's there. So I am performing my duty. I am challenging something that I believe to be an unlawful order, and we'll let the courts decide. We were hoping that the Supreme Court would go to a shadow docket and make a decision that was kind of final. That way we can all just move on with our lives, either we're banned and we can go get our new jobs, figure out where we're going to live, figure out how to pick up the pieces, or we're not banned, and we get to continue to serve and do what we love. Instead, we got kind of a non-answer, and we got the protections that we did have stripped away from us. We had this injunction in place that allowed people to stay deployed, allowed people to continue with their careers. I had individuals who were about to take over command of places, and then the ban happened, and they got pulled off of those things. And that person lost the opportunity to command, and their career is irrevocably damaged. Thousands of people will be kicked out of the military, and then if the lower courts decide 'Oops, that's a mistake,' what are we going to do? Invite them all back? What's your plan these next few months? This fight right now is purely legal. We hope that we will have a more favorable administration or Congress at some point, and then we can step up the advocacy side again, working on public opinion, working on congressional opinion, and hopefully get trans and so many other rights codified into law. So for Emily Shilling, the next few months are going to continue to be this world of uncertainty: Do I have a job? Do I not? Am I going to continue with the Navy? Am I not? It's a hard place to live in. I have the privilege and luck that my partner is, she's an O-5 in the military too. She makes good pay, and we can live on her salary, and she's not at threat of losing our job. But there are a lot of troops who aren't in that situation, and they're going to be hurting like so many Americans are right now. Recent administrations have sort of flip-flopped on this issue. Trump instituted a ban in his first term, which Biden revoked, and now Trump's bringing it back. How do you think that impacts young transgender people's willingness to serve? Well, I feel it's devastating. It's not only devastating to the trans individual, but to all their friends and their allies. Studies have shown that the mass majority of our youth support the LGBT community, and are they going to want to work or serve for an organization that doesn't reflect those values? I got called to the Navy because the motto at the time when I joined was, 'A global force for good,' and I truly believed that, and I'm very proud of the service that I've done. In my entire adult life I've encouraged my kids to go into the military. When I've talked to people, I've told them that they've given me so much, and I'm such a better person for having served. At this moment I can't give that advice [in] good conscience, and I truly hope, and I choose to hope and believe that our military will prevail in the end, and we will show what honor and courage and commitment look like, and we will stay true to our values, and we will be a service worth serving for. Why do you think the Trump administration continues to target transgender military members? I don't want to get ahead of the president, and I don't want to really speak for him, because it's not my place to make any kind of judgment on his character or on his policies; he's my boss. But I think in the grander scheme, there's always some population that is vilified, that has turned into the boogeyman. And the arguments are always the same. They were: 'Oh, it's going to destroy morale in the units. Oh, it's going to cost too much. Oh, it'll be a distraction.' And every single time, we have been shown that it's just not the case. I was in the service when 'don't ask, don't tell' was repealed. I remember sitting on the fantail smoking cigars with my friends and them thinking it was just the end of the world if we let gay people serve in the military, that the military will just disintegrate, and it just isn't the case. We're here over a decade later, and the military is still strong. It's going to be the same thing with trans individuals. It's just going to take time for the world to catch up. You've talked in the past about how transitioning helped you become a better leader and a stronger asset to the military. In 2016 when I was a test pilot, I was at the peak of my career living my dream. And I didn't come out when I could, because I wanted to keep flying, and I didn't want to put my squadron down a person. So I waited. And by the time that I could come out, the ban was put in place the first time. And that left me distracted, it left me angry. It left me unable to connect with individuals because I was only bringing in 60, 70 percent of myself to work. The rest of that energy was dealing with putting a mask on and being somebody I'm not. So when I finally did come out, I'm now showing up to work completely authentic. I'm showing up at 100 percent and I'm able to actually meet people where they are with a little bit of empathy. Before I came out, I was a 36-year-old white man, married, three kids, two cars, a dog, a house, and I didn't think racism existed. I didn't think sexism existed. I didn't see any of them because I never experienced them. And when I got put into one of the most despised groups in the country right now or vilified groups, the transgender community, I'm hearing this bigotry and this transphobia, and it really opened my eyes that maybe I didn't have it all right, and just because I hadn't seen or experienced it myself, maybe I was wrong. I learned so much that I had never seen or been willing to see. I'm able to connect with my people in a way that I've never been able to. And that is true leadership. You've served for almost two decades now. Why was it important for you to serve in the first place? And how has service impacted you? People always say, 'Thank you for your service,' and all I can ever say back is 'No, thank you to the service for letting me serve.' I graduated college, I started working as an engineer, and I wanted some adventure. I wanted to do something that I felt meant something. When we were in Afghanistan, the thing that drove me was women's rights. And I was very proud of what we were doing. I'm heartbroken. I've watched something that I've dedicated so much energy and so much time to and so much love to. It was the honor of a lifetime to serve in the U.S. Navy, and I just hope that they live up to the sacrifice that we've made.
Boston Globe
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Supreme Court lets Trump enforce transgender troop ban
The case concerns an executive order issued on the first day of President Trump's second term. It revoked an order from President Joe Biden that had let transgender service members serve openly. A week later, Trump issued a second order saying that 'adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual's sex conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle.' Advertisement The Defense Department implemented Trump's order in February, issuing a new policy requiring transgender troops to be forced out of the military. According to officials there, about 4,200 current service members, or about 0.2 percent of the military, are transgender. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The Supreme Court's order came against the backdrop of the Trump administration's broad attacks on transgender rights. The administration has sought to bar transgender athletes from sports competitions. It has tried to force transgender people to use bathrooms designated for their sex assigned at birth. And it has objected to letting people choose their pronouns. The justices will soon decide the fate of a Tennessee law that bans transition care for transgender youths, challenged in a case brought by the Biden administration. The Trump administration flipped the government's position in that case in February, after an executive order directed agencies to take steps to curtail surgeries, hormone therapy, and other gender transition care for people under 19 years old. Advertisement In the case decided Tuesday, seven active service members, as well as a person who sought to join and an advocacy group, sued to block the policy, saying, among other things, that it ran afoul of the Constitution's equal protection clause. One of the plaintiffs, Commander Emily Shilling, who began transitioning in 2021 while serving in the Navy, has been a naval aviator for 19 years, flying more than 60 combat missions, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her lawyers said the Navy had spent $20 million on her training. In March, Judge Benjamin H. Settle of US District Court in Tacoma, Wash., issued a nationwide injunction blocking the ban, using Shilling as an example of the policy's flaws. 'There is no claim and no evidence that she is now, or ever was, a detriment to her unit's cohesion, or to the military's lethality or readiness, or that she is mentally or physically unable to continue her service,' Settle wrote. 'There is no claim and no evidence that Shilling herself is dishonest or selfish, or that she lacks humility or integrity. Yet absent an injunction, she will be promptly discharged solely because she is transgender.' Settle, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote that the government had failed to show that the ban was 'substantially related to achieving unit cohesion, good order or discipline.' 'Although the court gives deference to military decision-making,' the judge added, 'it would be an abdication to ignore the government's flat failure to address plaintiffs' uncontroverted evidence that years of open transgender service promoted these objectives.' Advertisement The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block Settle's ruling while it considered the administration's appeal. The administration then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, saying that 'the district court's injunction cannot be squared with the substantial deference that the department's professional military judgments are owed.' At a minimum, the government said the Supreme Court should limit Settle's ruling to the plaintiffs in the case and lift the balance of the nationwide injunction. The court opted for the broader approach, pausing the injunction entirely. Lawyers for the challengers reacted with dismay. 'Today's Supreme Court ruling is a devastating blow to transgender service members who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation's defense,' said a statement from Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Settle's ruling followed a similar one from Judge Ana C. Reyes of US District Court in Washington. 'The law does not demand that the court rubber-stamp illogical judgments based on conjecture,' wrote Reyes, who was appointed by Biden. The District of Columbia Circuit entered an 'administrative stay,' saying the brief pause in enforcing Reyes' ruling 'should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits.' That court is expected to rule shortly on the government's request that it block Reyes' ruling while the appeal proceeds. Early in his first term, Trump announced a transgender ban on Twitter, but two federal judges blocked the policy. The Supreme Court lifted those injunctions in 2019 by a 5-4 vote, allowing a revised ban to take effect while legal challenges moved forward. The cases were dropped after Trump left office and Biden rescinded the ban. Advertisement In its emergency application, the administration said the policy on transgender troops that the justices had allowed in 2019 was materially identical to the new one. The challengers disputed that, saying the earlier policy allowed active-duty service members who had transitioned to remain in the armed forces, which Trump's new policy does not. They added that the earlier policy 'lacked the animus-laden language' of the new one, which they said disparaged 'transgender people as inherently untruthful, undisciplined, dishonorable, selfish, arrogant, and incapable of meeting the rigorous standards of military service.' This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court Allows Trump Ban On Transgender Members Of The Military To Be Enforced
In a blow to transgender service members across the U.S. military, the Supreme Court on Tuesday granted the Trump administration's request to allow its ban on transgender troops to be enforced while litigation is pending. In the brief order in the case known as Shilling v. United States, the justices did not expand on their decision. The order only noted that Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson would have denied the Trump administration's emergency request to lift nationwide injunctions placed on the ban by lower courts. In January, President Donald Trump issued an executive orderpurporting to improve military readiness by banning service members who expressed a gender identity different from the one assigned to them at birth. In an apparent dig at former President Joe Biden's decision in 2021 to rescind the ban on transgender troops that Trump instituted in his first term, Trump's executive order this year claimed that the U.S. Armed Forces had been 'afflicted with radical gender ideology.' Until Biden's executive order, the Supreme Court had allowed Trump's ban on transgender troops to go into effect as litigation unfolded. Trump's executive order in January did not mention the word 'transgender'; instead, it claimed without any supporting evidence that 'expressing a false 'gender identity' divergent from an individual's sex' means that the person cannot 'satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service' including 'lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity and integrity.' Following Trump's order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy in February that used similar language, banning anyone who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria or had undergone evaluation for it from serving. Gender dysphoria is defined as the distress a person feels when their physical body doesn't match up with their gender identity. Per Hegseth's memo, anyone impacted by the ban would be fired by late March unless they could secure a waiver to stay enlisted. A series of civil lawsuits from transgender troops — many of them highly decorated — popped up in numerous states as a result. Among the first was one filed in Washington state by U.S. Navy Commander Emily Shilling, a transgender woman who has spent 20 years in the military, served tours of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and has passed rigorous physical and psychological evaluations. Shilling, joined by five other transgender service members, claimed the new policies lacked any legitimate function, and worse, were steeped in unfounded prejudice. Transgender service members were being punished for expressing their gender, and that expression, Shilling's lawyers argued, is a guaranteed First Amendment right. Justice Department lawyers have argued the ban is not targeting transgender people but only those diagnosed with gender dysphoria. But when U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle put an injunction on the ban, he noted that though Trump's order and Hegseth's memo 'scrupulously' avoided using the word 'transgender,' 'common sense and binding authority defeat the government's claim that it does not discriminate against transgender people.' In practice, the ban amounted to 'a de facto blanket prohibition on transgender service,' Settle wrote, because the Defense Department had failed to show that it took studies or data on the reliability of transgender service members into any real consideration when crafting its policy, whether that data was 'positive, neutral or negative,' Settle wrote. This point was driven home by another judge presiding over a similar lawsuit brought by trans service members in Washington, D.C. Over a series of hearings in the case Talbott v. Trump this spring, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes pored over claims the Defense Department used to craft its policy around troops with gender dysphoria. Reyes told the government it had 'cherry picked' information to fit its narrative that trans service members were untrustworthy or incapable of serving as well or better than their cisgender counterparts. The government's narrative, she said, 'screams animus,' a term for hostility to a given class of people. Lawyers for the Trump administration have replied by alleging a lack of deference by the courts to the U.S. military. When he first asked the Supreme Court to halt the injunction on the trans military ban, Solicitor General John Sauer — once a personal lawyer to Trump — said the district courts had 'usurp[ed] the Executive Branch's authority to determine who may serve in the Nation's armed forces.' The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has yet to decide whether the nationwide injunction granted by Reyes should be put on hold or not. A ruling is imminent.
CNBC
05-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
In U.S.-China trade war, India could be a winner: Market analyst Gary Shilling
Market analyst Gary Shilling says the U.S. trade war with China is pushing him to look more closely at investments in India. In a recent episode of "The Bottom Line," Shilling highlighted a few reasons he's bullish on India. Shilling noted that India is a democracy that inherited its legal system from the British. The English language is widely used, which is "pretty handy in today's world," Shilling said. While China's population is expected to decline over the next four or five decades, Shilling said, reducing its workforce, India's population is booming. With more than 1.44 billion people, according to the U.N. Population Fund, India has overtaken China as the world's most populous country. "As economies grow, more money proportionally is spent on services and less on goods," Shilling said. "You can only put so many cars in your driveway, but in services, you can spend almost an infinite amount of money on recreation, travel, medical services, and so on." Watch the video to find out more about what Gary Shilling thinks the tariffs will do to the U.S. and global economies, whether manufacturing will come back to the U.S., and what this all means for the U.S. dollar.
