Transgender Americans are getting whiplash as legal protections they secured under formerPresident Barack Obama continue to vanish in the Trumpadministration.

Obama sidesteppedCongress to achieve those rights, speeding things up in a drive forwhat he called inclusion and social progress. But that method hasmade it easy for President Donald Trump to hit the rewindbutton.

Transgender policy shifts since Trump’selection victory have run the gamut, from bathroom use in schoolsto enlisting in the U.S. military. On Tuesday, theJustice Department rescinded an Obama-era memo that directedfederal prosecutors to interpret the landmark Civil Rights Act of1964 to bar workplace discrimination against transgender employees.

“Today marks another low point for a Department of Justice,which has been cruelly consistent in its hostility towards the LGBTcommunity and in particular its inability to treat transgenderpeople with basic dignity and respect," James Esseks, a director atthe American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

Abandonedprinciple

Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department expandedthe law beyond what Congress intended, abandoning a fundamentalprinciple, according to Devin M. O’Malley, a spokesman for theagency in Washington.

"This Department remains committed to protecting the civil andconstitutional rights of all individuals, and will continue toenforce the numerous laws that Congress has enacted that prohibitdiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation," O’Malley saidin an emailed statement.

In the memo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said hispredecessor, Eric Holder, erred in 2014 by declaring that Title VIIof the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits sex-discrimination,applied to transgender employees.

"Although federal law, including Title VII, provides variousprotections to transgender individuals, Title VII does not prohibitdiscrimination based on gender identity per se," Sessions said inthe memo.

The memo was held up by civil rights groups as further evidenceof Trump undermining the rights of LGBT Americans. Sessionspreviously rolled back an Obama-era memo directing public schoolsto allow transgender students to use the bathroom for thegender they identify with.

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And in July, Trump tweeted a ban ontransgender soldiers in the military. That same month, Sessionsfiled a brief in an employment discrimination suit arguing Title VII shouldn’t be used to protectemployees from being fired for being gay or lesbian. The agencyalso filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court backing a Coloradobakery in a case over its refusal to make a wedding cake for asame-sex couple.

‘Jaw-dropping policy’

“The DOJ’s jaw-dropping policy conflicts with years ofinterpretation from both the U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuitcourts," Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the nonprofit HumanRights Campaign, said in a statement. "Sessions is openly directingthe Department to ignore their responsibilities in protecting thecivil rights of all Americans.”

Also this week, the Justice Department asked a federal judge tothrow out a lawsuit by members of the armed forces challengingTrump’s proposed ban on transgender soldiers, citing the courtsystem’s long history of “healthy deference" to the military onconstitutional matters.

The government’s primary argument in that case is that thelawsuit is premature, because the policy is still in the planningstage. But the agency urged the judge to defer to the politicalbranches on issues of national defense on the grounds that courtshave less competence to second-guess military decision-making.

Courts have long upheld the military’s exclusionary rules whileinvalidating similar policies "in the civilian sphere," theU.S. Justice Department said in a filing Wednesday infederal court in the District of Columbia. For example, the courtsallowed the Air Force to bar a Jewish officer from wearing ayarmulke while working as a psychologist in a base hospital,according to the filing.

“Of course, there are limits,” the U.S. said in Wednesday’sfiling. "No amount of deference could save the military’s decisionto exclude a race or religion from being considered."

"But outside those extreme examples, the military’s policies areentitled to a ‘healthy deference’ their civilian counterparts donot enjoy,” the government said.

Military readiness

The National Center forLesbian Rights, which is representing the plaintiffs in thecase, said in a statement that transgender Americans are alreadybeing harmed because those who are looking to enlist aren’t able todo so, and current transgender soldiers have been demeaned,stigmatized and denied health care.

Trump advocated for the ban saying it’s needed to ensuremilitary readiness and save money that is being spent on surgeriesfor transgender soldiers.

The case is Doe v. Trump, 17-cv-1597, U.S. District Court,District of Columbia (Washington).

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