1. United States
2. Mich.
3. Letter

Block the Pentagon's purge of transgender service members. These troops have earned their place in uniform, and the military's own officers know it. Navy and Marine Corps separation boards have voted to retain transgender service members in nine of 12 cases reviewed, because war fighters evaluating war fighters can see the record in front of them. Marine Staff Sgt. Damien Contreras completed three overseas deployments as a supply and logistics specialist. Army Capt. Kai Proce served 11 years and mentored cadets at West Point. His panel still voted to remove him based on a diagnosis, not his performance. Pete Hegseth has repeatedly described the goal as excluding transgender people, using anti-trans slurs in speeches, while his lawyers ask courts to ignore those statements. That is not a readiness policy. That is malice dressed up in bureaucratic language. The trial is scheduled for January 4. Transgender troops are fighting in court for the right to keep serving a country they have already bled for. The least their elected officials can do is fight alongside them.