Rights group calls RNC vote on transgender military ban 'disgusting'

A leading military civil rights group on Friday blasted the Republican National Committee for what it said was a “disgusting, vile” vote in support of President Trump’s effort to ban transgender troops from the armed services.

The criticism from the American Military Partner Association came after the RNC passed a resolution Friday during its annual winter meeting backing Trump and his position that being transgender should be a “disqualifying psychological and physical” condition, per an Associated Press report.

Trump announced the ban last summer and ordered the Pentagon to come up with a new personnel policy, which is set to be completed this month. In the meantime, the ban remains tied up in federal courts where transgender troops have sued and managed to win preliminary injunctions blocking any changes for now.

"Shame on the Republican National Committee for slandering the brave transgender men and women who serve our nation," Ashley Broadway-Mack, the president of the American Military Partner Association, said in a statement. "Not only did the RNC just degrade active duty service members, but they also maligned countless military families across the country with family members who also happen to be transgender.

“This is a disgusting, vile attempt to play politics with the lives of our military families,” she said.

The RNC also advocated that Trump’s Justice Department take the matter to the Supreme Court, according to the AP report.

Federal civil lawsuits against Trump and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are now playing out in Washington, D.C., Maryland, California, and Washington state.

Judges issued injunctions in all four cases, blocking the Trump administration from any moves to change the military’s current transgender policy, and the Justice Department decided in December not to petition the Supreme Court over the initial rulings.

The cases are now moving into the discovery and depositions phases and could eventually hold trials. Active-duty transgender plaintiffs in the Washington state lawsuit have asked that court for a summary judgment, which elevates the fight to the appeals courts and eventually the Supreme Court.