January, 24 2021, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Amanda Johnston, Director of Public Affairs & Education, GLAD
ajohnston@glad.org / (617) 417-7769
Christopher Vasquez, Communications Director, NCLR
cvasquez@nclrights.org / (415) 365-1337
Samuel Garrett-Pate, Communications Director, Equality California
press@eqca.org / (973) 476-3770
Advocates, Plaintiffs Applaud President Biden's Reversal of the Transgender Military Ban
Today, President Biden issued an executive order lifting the ban on transgender military service. Since the outgoing administration began to enforce the ban in April 2019, dedicated transgender service members have been threatened with discharge, and qualified transgender Americans have been barred from enlisting, participating in ROTC, or attending military academies.
WASHINGTON
Today, President Biden issued an executive order lifting the ban on transgender military service. Since the outgoing administration began to enforce the ban in April 2019, dedicated transgender service members have been threatened with discharge, and qualified transgender Americans have been barred from enlisting, participating in ROTC, or attending military academies.
From its announcement, the ban was criticized by military leaders and experts and faced broad bipartisan opposition from the public. Multiple federal courts issued rulings against it, which kept the ban from going into effect for nearly two years after President Trump first ordered it in July 2017. GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) filed the first legal challenge, Doe v. Trump, on behalf of multiple current and aspiring transgender service members, in August 2017 and joined in filing a second lawsuit, Stockman v. Trump, on behalf of Equality California and seven additional service members and recruits the following month. GLAD and NCLR anticipate a swift resolution of all pending lawsuits opposing the ban with the issuance of today's order.
"It is my highest goal to serve my country in the U.S. military and I've fought this ban because I know that I am qualified to serve," said Nicolas Talbott, an aspiring service member who is a plaintiff in Stockman v. Trump. "I'm thrilled and relieved that I and other transgender Americans can now be evaluated solely on our ability to meet military standards. I look forward to becoming the best service member I can be."
"Our fight to end the transgender military ban was about equal opportunity, fairness and service, and President Biden's order today honors those shared national values," said Jennifer Levi, Director of Transgender Rights Project at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. "Transgender Americans can and will bring needed skills to our armed forces at every level, and I look forward to seeing our nation benefit from the contributions of a new generation of transgender leaders and patriots."
"President Biden's order allows us to put this shameful episode behind us and marks the beginning of a much brighter era in which military service is once again based on a person's qualifications, not on who they are," said Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "Transgender people have proved their fitness to serve and ask nothing more than the opportunity to do so based on the same standards that apply to others. This is a great day for our nation and a welcome relief from the negative and divisive policies of the past four years."
"With the stroke of a pen, President Biden has simultaneously put an end to an unpatriotic, discriminatory policy and given hope to thousands of qualified transgender servicemembers and their families," said Rick Chavez Zbur, Executive Director of Equality California. "Today is the result of countless transgender patriots -- like Nic Talbott and so many others -- speaking up to defend their livelihoods and their country. Equality California has always stood with our transgender troops, but we are especially proud to do so today."
Through strategic litigation, public policy advocacy, and education,
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'MAGA Power Grab': US Supreme Court OKs 2026 Map That Texas GOP Rigged for Trump
One journalist who covers voting rights called the decision upholding the new districts "yet another example" of how the high court "has greenlit the many undemocratic schemes of Trump and his party."
Dec 04, 2025
The US Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority on Thursday gave Texas Republicans a green light to use a political map redrawn at the request of President Donald Trump to help the GOP retain control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.
Since Texas lawmakers passed and GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed the gerrymandering bill in August, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his constituents have responded with updated congressional districts to benefit Democrats, while Republican legislators in Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina—under pressure from the president—have pursued new maps for their states.
With Texas' candidate filing period set to close next week, a majority of justices on Thursday blocked a previous decision from two of three US district court judges who had ruled against the state map. The decision means that, at least for now, the state can move ahead with the new map, which could ultimately net Republicans five more seats, for its March primary elections.
"Texas is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the district court committed at least two serious errors," the Supreme Court's majority wrote. "First, the district court failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the Legislature."
"Second, the district court failed to draw a dispositive or near-dispositive adverse inference against respondents even though they did not produce a viable alternative map that met the state's avowedly partisan goals," the majority continued. "The district court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections."
Texas clearly did a racial gerrymander, which is illegal.A district court found that Texas did a racial gerrymander, rejecting the new map because it is illegal.But the Supreme Court reversed it.Because? Must assume the gerrymanderers were acting in good faith (despite the evidence otherwise).
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— Nicholas Grossman (@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social) December 4, 2025 at 6:18 PM
The court's three liberals—Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor—dissented. Contrasting the three-month process that led to the map initially being struck down and the majority's move to reverse "that judgment based on its perusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record," Kagan wrote for the trio that "we are a higher court than the district court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision."
"Today's order disrespects the work of a district court that did everything one could ask to carry out its charge—that put aside every consideration except getting the issue before it right," Kagan asserted. "And today's order disserves the millions of Texans whom the district court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race."
"This court's stay guarantees that Texas' new map, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will govern next year's elections for the House of Representatives. And this court's stay ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race," she warned. "And that result, as this court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution."
Simply amazing that the Supreme Court declared an end to legal race discrimination in the affirmative action case two years ago and now allows overt racism in both immigration arrests and redistricting.Using race to help minorities? Bad. Using it to discriminate against them? Very, very good.
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— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) December 4, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Top Democrats in the state and country swiftly condemned the court's majority. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin called it "wrong—both morally and legally," and argued that "once again, the Supreme Court gave Trump exactly what he wanted: a rigged map to help Republicans avoid accountability in the midterms for turning their backs on the American people."
"But it will backfire," Martin predicted. "Texas Democrats fought every step of the way against these unlawful, rigged congressional maps and sparked a national movement. Democrats are fighting back, responding in kind to even the playing field across the country. Republicans are about to be taught one valuable lesson: Don't mess with Texas voters."
Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu (D-137) declared that "the Supreme Court failed Texas voters today, and they failed American democracy. This is what the end of the Voting Rights Act looks like: courts that won't protect minority communities even when the evidence is staring them in the face."
"I'm angry about this ruling. Every Texan who testified against these maps should be angry. Every community that fought for generations to build political power and watched Republicans try to gerrymander it away should be angry. But anger without action is just noise, and Democrats are taking action to fight back," he continued, pointing to California's passage of Proposition 50 and organizing in other states, including Illinois, New York, and Virginia. "A nationwide movement is being built that says if Republicans want to play this game, Democrats will play it better."
SCOTUS conservative justices upholding Texas gerrymander is yet another example of how Roberts court has greenlit the many undemocratic schemes of Trump and his partyThey’ve now ruled for Trump and his allies in 90 percent of shadow docket opinions www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
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— Ari Berman (@ariberman.bsky.social) December 4, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, said in a statement that "the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court just handed Republicans five new seats in Congress, rubber-stamping Texas Republicans' MAGA power grab. Make no mistake: This isn't about fair representation for Texans. It is about sidelining voters of color and helping Trump and Republican politicians dodge accountability for their unpopular agenda."
"In America, voters get to choose their representatives, not the other way around," she stressed. "But this captured court undermines this basic democratic principle at every turn. We deserve a Supreme Court that protects the freedom to vote and strengthens democracy instead of enabling partisan politics. It's time for Democrats in Congress to get serious about plans for Supreme Court reform once Trump leaves office, including term limits, an enforceable code of ethics, and expanding the court."
Various journalists and political observers also suggested that, despite Thursday's decision in favor of politically motivated mid-decade redistricting, the high court's right-wing majority may ultimately rule against the California map—which, if allowed to stand, could cancel out the impact of Texas gerrymandering by likely erasing five Republican districts.
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Demands to Release Full Video of Deadly US Boat Strike Grow After Congressional Briefing
"The Department of Defense has no choice but to release the complete, unedited footage," said Sen. Jack Reed.
Dec 04, 2025
Calls mounted Thursday for the Trump administration to release the full video of a September US airstrike on a boat allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea following a briefing between Pentagon officials and select lawmakers that left some Democrats with more questions than answers.
“I am deeply disturbed by what I saw this morning," Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after the briefing. "The Department of Defense has no choice but to release the complete, unedited footage of the September 2 strike, as the president has agreed to do."
Reed's remarks came after Adm. Frank Bradley and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine briefed some members of the Senate and House Armed Services and Intelligence committees on the so-called "double-tap" strike, in which nine people were killed in the initial bombing and two survivors clinging to the burning wreckage of the vessel were slain in second attack.
Lawmakers who attended the briefing said that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly did not give an order to "kill everyone" aboard the boat. However, legal experts and congressional critics contend that the strikes are inherently illegal under international law.
“This did not reduce my concerns at all—or anyone else’s,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who attended the briefing, told the New Republic's Greg Sargent in response to the findings regarding Hegseth's actions. “This is a big, big problem, and we need a full investigation.”
"I think that video should be public," Smith added.
The Trump administration has tried to justify the strikes to Congress by claiming that the US is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels, which some legal scholars and lawmakers have disputed.
Cardozo Law School professor of international law Rebecca Ingbe told Time in a Thursday interview that "there is no actual armed conflict here, so this is murder."
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday that “clearly, in my view, very likely a war crime was committed here."
“We don't use our military to help intervene when it comes to drug running, and what the Trump administration has done is manufactured cause for conflict with respect to going after drug boats and engaging in extrajudicial killing when the real aim is clearly regime change in Venezuela," he added, alluding to President Donald Trump's massive military deployment and threats to invade the oil-rich South American nation.
At least 83 people have been killed in 21 disclosed strikes on boats the Trump administration claims—without releasing evidence—were transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. South American leaders and relatives of survivors say that at least some of the victims of the US bombings were fishermen with no ties to narco-trafficking.
Reed said that Thursday's briefing "confirmed my worst fears about the nature of the Trump administration’s military activities, and demonstrates exactly why the Senate Armed Services Committee has repeatedly requested—and been denied—fundamental information, documents, and facts about this operation."
"This must, and will be, only the beginning of our investigation into this incident," he vowed.
After the briefing, US Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.)—the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence—called the footage “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”
“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see its military attacking shipwrecked sailors,” he added.
Thursday's calls followed similar demands from skeptical Democrats, some of whom accused the Trump administration of withholding evidence.
"Pete Hegseth should release the full tapes of the September 2 attack," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on the upper chamber floor on Tuesday. "Both the first and second strike. Not a clip. Not some edited or redacted snippet. The full unedited tapes of each strike must be released so the American people can see what happened with their own eyes."
"Pete Hegseth said he did nothing wrong," he added. "So prove it."
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Microplastics Make Up Majority of National Park Trash, Waste Audit Finds
“Even in landscapes that appeared untouched,” volunteers found “thousands of plastic pellets and fragments that pose a clear threat to the environment, wildlife, and human health,” said a 5 Gyres Institute spokesperson.
Dec 04, 2025
More than half the trash polluting America's national parks and federal lands contains hazardous microplastics, according to a waste audit published Thursday.
As part of its annual "TrashBlitz" effort to document the scale of plastic pollution in national parks and federal lands across the US, volunteers with the 5 Gyres Institute collected nearly 24,000 pieces of garbage at 59 federally protected locations.
In each of the four years the group has done the audit, they've found that plastic has made up the vast majority of trash in the sites.
They found that, again this year, plastic made up 85% of the waste they logged, with 25% of it single-use plastics like bottle caps, food wrappers, bags, and cups.
But for the first time, they also broke down the plastics category to account for microplastics, the small fragments that can lodge permanently in the human body and cause numerous harmful health effects.
As a Stanford University report from January 2025 explained:
In the past year alone, headlines have sounded the alarm about particles in tea bags, seafood, meat, and bottled water. Scientists have estimated that adults ingest the equivalent of one credit card per week in microplastics. Studies in animals and human cells suggest microplastics exposure could be linked to cancer, heart attacks, reproductive problems, and a host of other harms.
Microplastics come in two main forms: pre-production plastic pellets, sometimes known as "nurdles," which are melted down to make other products; and fragments of larger plastic items that break down over time.
The volunteers found that microplastic pellets and fragments made up more than half the trash they found over the course of their survey.
"Even in landscapes that appeared untouched, a closer look at trails, riverbeds, and coastlines revealed thousands of plastic pellets and fragments that pose a clear threat to the environment, wildlife, and human health,” said Nick Kemble, programs manager at the 5 Gyres Institute.
Most of the microplastics they found came in the form of pellets, which the group's report notes often "spill in transit from boats and trains, entering waterways that carry them further into the environment or deposit them on shorelines."
The surveyors identified the Altria Group—a leading manufacturer of cigarettes—PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch InBev, the Coca-Cola Company, and Mars as the top corporate polluters whose names appeared on branded trash.
But the vast majority of microplastic waste discovered was unbranded. According to the Coastal & Estuarine Research Federation, petrochemical companies such as Dow, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Formosa are among the leading manufacturers of pellets found strewn across America's bodies of water.
The 5 Gyres report notes that "at the federal level in the United States, there is no comprehensive regulatory framework that specifically holds these polluters accountable, resulting in widespread pollution that threatens ecosystems and wildlife."
The group called on Congress to pass the Reducing Waste in National Parks Act, introduced in 2023 by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), which would reduce the sale of single-use plastics in national parks. It also advocated for the Plastic Pellet Free Waters Act, introduced last year by Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) and then-Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska), which would prohibit the discharge of pre-production plastic pellets into waterways, storm drains, and sewers.
"It’s time that our elected officials act on the warnings we’ve raised for years—single-use plastics and microplastics pose an immediate threat to our environment and public health," said Paulita Bennett-Martin, senior strategist of policy initiatives at 5 Gyres. "TrashBlitz volunteers uncovered thousands of microplastics in our nation’s most protected spaces, and we’re urging decisive action that addresses this issue at the source."
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