“Would you agree that if the military is negatively impacted [from the use of pronouns], we all have a lot bigger problems than pronoun use?” Reyes asked. If that is the case, “our military is incompetent,” she said.
“I can’t agree with that,”
Justice Department attorney Jason Lynch said.
“Do you think usage of that preferred pronoun by that small group of people is going to impact our ability in combat situations?” she said. “Explain to me how pronoun usage impacts [military readiness].
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The order also claims that the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
“A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member,” the order states.
Reyes repeatedly asked whether that language is “demeaning” to transgender people.
“The government is not willing to take a position [that] to categorically call a group of people selfish is demeaning?” she said. “The answer is ‘yes it is,’ ‘no it isn’t,’ or ‘I can’t say.’”
Lynch said he could not speak to it in a “constitutional sense.”
“I want to know from the government, whether that language expresses animus,” said Reyes, suggesting that she could strike against the executive order to prove that it was motivated by prejudice.
“This is the policy of the president of the United States that is impacting thousands of people,” she said. “Calling an entire group of people lying, dishonest people with no integrity … how is that anything other than showing animus? … You have an answer, you just refuse to give it.”
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Trump’s order also rails against what the president and his allies have labeled “radical gender ideology,” which government lawyers could not define in court.
“If you can’t articulate what radical gender ideology means, how is the defense secretary going to know what it means?” Reyes asked.
Lynch said he is “loathe to speculate” what Trump meant.
“It’s not like I randomly picked you off the street,” Reyes fired back. “You’re the government’s representative here.”