THUNDERDOME ABSURDITY: CNN's Abby Phillip, Panel Libs Equate Gender Dysphoria to RACE AND ETHNITICITY

Jorge Bonilla
May 7th, 2025 2:24 PM

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The latest episode of CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip, also known as the Thunderdome, proves the old maxim that sometimes the best way to make a conservative argument is to just let liberals talk. This is especially true in the case of the recent ban on transgender individuals in the military.

In sum, the deranged idea to emerge from this panel conversation is that a military ban of transgender individuals is identical to a theoretical ban of Black or Hispanic individuals. On its face, such an argument is ridiculous. In more serious times, those advancing such arguments would be laughed out of polite society for suggesting that having immutable physical characteristics (such as skin color) or European non-Anglo-Saxon ethnic origins are somehow comparable to a mental disorder treated with hormone therapy and, in extremis, physical mutilation. Alas, these are not serious times.

Host Abby Phillip came on after a trans panelist and laid that argument out. But when she was called on it by 2025 MRC Bulldog Award winner Scott Jennings, she deflected and deferred (click “expand” to view all transcripts).

PHILLIP: What is the argument other than Trump -- Hegseth just doesn't want trans people in the military?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON: Well, I mean, I think that the President -- we'll ultimately see, I think that's why the court is allowing the President to move forward with this until it works itself through the court system, maybe the Supreme Court will be the final arbiter here to say, yeah or nay, you can do this. But ultimately, I think the court is showcasing deference to the executive saying that, look, you're the President, you're over the military, you do for the most part get to sort of dictate the standards of our military. And I don't really see how you can push back against that. Again, we'll see what happens in the court.

JULIE ROGINSKY: I can.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGINSKY: Yeah, I'm sorry. I can. What if the President wakes up tomorrow and says, I don't want any black people in the military? Do we have- could we give deference to him? I'm not well, no, no.

SINGLETON: Okay. Julie, Julie.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: Ridiculous.

ROGINSKY: No, wait a second. It's not ridiculous. It's not ridiculous because you're discriminating against a group of people in a very similar way.

SINGLETON: Julie --

JENNINGS: I knew you were going to say that.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGINSKY: Excuse me. Well, I'm glad you said that.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I'm curious, why is it -- why is it ridiculous? I mean, you just said the President should be the one who just decides.

UNKNOWN: Right.

PHILLIP: So, if he decides, he wakes up tomorrow and says, I think it's bad for morale, it's bad for cohesiveness, for there to be, black people in the military, Latino people in the military. Just in her hypothetical scenario, what's the difference between that and what we're seeing here?

JENNINGS: I mean, are you really going to go down this ridiculous road?

PHILLIP: I'm just --

ROGINSKY: I'm sorry. She's asking --

PHILLIP: I'm asking based--

JENNINGS: Ridiculous. This is a ridiculous argument.

PHILLIP: Well, okay.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: The President -- the President and the Secretary of Defense have an argument here. They believe that readiness and unit cohesion and overall operations of the military are impacted by this. That is their opinion, and that is the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief who the Constitution gives broad latitude to run the Armed Forces. So, that's her opinion. You're allowed to have one. You're allowed to have one. You're also allowed to run for president and become Commander-in-Chief yourself, but until you do -- until you do, he's the Commander-in-Chief.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I have to just say I -- I didn't hear an answer to the hypothetical, right? I just didn't hear it.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: That's not hypothetical though. That's ridiculous. 

PHILLIP: Okay, the definition of discrimination according to the American Psychological Association - discrimination is the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people or groups based on characteristics such as race, gender, age or sexual orientation. What is the difference between, um, you know, prohibiting certain groups like transgender people from serving versus, you know, people based on their race or even their gender, frankly?

SINGLETON: I -- I personally think there's a difference, and I'm just going to leave it at that.

JEMELE HILL: Well, I -- I will say --

JENNINGS: Do you believe that race and are -- are you saying that the quality of race and the quality of transgender are the same?

PHILLIP: I'm just asking the question because I think you're making there's -- there's a distinction but you're not explaining why.

JENNINGS: I'm asking, you -- you guys brought up hypothetical. Are you arguing that someone's race is the same as someone choosing to become transgender?

PHILLIP: Alaina?

Jennings took the argument in the direction of the exercise of executive power. But the panelists insisted on arguing that the urge to chop off one’s genitalia is comparable to race and ethnicity. The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill even went so far as to suggest that the trans ban is comparable to the persecution of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.

HILL: The other thing, or there's a few things that bothered me about this, and mostly it was the language of the policy, right? When you're -- look when looking -- reading at some of these words, transgender people as in- as inherently untruthful, undisciplined, dishonorable. That's like a very weighty thing to say about people who are courageously deciding to protect this country. The other problem, Scott, is that it's never enough. It's bathrooms today. It's sports today. It's sports tomorrow. It's the military today.

JENNINGS: No, it's also sports today, by the way.

HILL: Yeah. It is sports today.

JENNINGS: Eighty percent of Americans agree about it.

HILL: Yeah. Oh, that's fine. And 80 percent -- guess what? The majority sometimes is wrong. That also happens, right? Because the majority used to believe that doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was --

JENNINGS: Okay.

HILL: -- somebody who was a threat and somebody who was not a good American. The majority of people used to be against civil rights. Were they right? No, they weren't. And so, the whole point is when you target one group and inevitably that line moves to everybody else. And I'm not saying he's coming for black people tomorrow, but considering that this is a military or this is a -- a leadership that is already using DEI as code word for black people already when it comes to the military, suddenly, when you don't protect the most vulnerable, you wind up making it worse for everybody else that's in the marriage of the marginalized --

JENNINGS: What do you think about what?

HILL: You don't think trans people are vulnerable in this country?

JENNINGS: So, are -- is it your position that the Commander-in-Chief should recruit people who you're describing as vulnerable into the --

HILL: No. He should -- he should he should recruit people who want to serve and protect this country. And it's really kind of ironic considering he dodged the draft that he's trying to -- he suddenly has an opinion about -- Or else we'll be suddenly getting a point of elections. And, Elena, you -- you pointed this out. This is going through the court system.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: He has an opinion because he won the election.

Note that Hill basically said that 80% of you are wrong for wanting to get men out of women's sports. Failing to move Jennings, Hill tries to flourish out with a draft dodger tu quoque but fails. As Jennings correctly points out, the American people adjudicated this. The real whopper comes towards the end, a distillation of our political discourse.

ROGINSKY: But you also -- sorry, but you also talked about unit cohesion, and that's exactly the same kind of argument that they made against integrating the military when Harry Truman did it. I'm sorry. It's the same argument.

SINGLETON: Here we go again with this shit. Okay.

ROGINSKY: It's the same --

PHILLIP: I mean, is she wrong about that, though? I mean, she is right about that from a factual perspective.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGINSKY: There were people who did not want to serve white as white --

SINGLETON: I'm -- I'm aware. I'm aware.

ROGINSKY: White people didn't listen to black people because of unit cohesions. And now you're saying gay can --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: We only have a couple of seconds? Shermichael, I -- see that you're -- you're frustrated that she made that argument. But is she wrong that unit cohesion was used as an excuse to keep the military segregated for a long time?

SINGLETON: I think we should --

PHILLIP: And also "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" when it comes to --

SINGLETON: -- focus on --

PHILLIP: -- discriminating against gay and lesbian people.

SINGLETON: We should focus on the issue at hand. That's what I think.

ROGINSKY: Same like, same argument.

SINGLETON: But I - I --

PHILLIP: So, no. Just no answer.

SINGLETON: No, we should focus on this issue at hand. I don't know why we keep going to bringing up race. Let's just focus on this issue right here.

PHILLIP: Well, look, it’s race, sexual orientation. We've seen this twice, right? In two major junctures for the military. I'm just wondering, if she is drawing parallels here between the arguments that are being made to maintain this policy, do you think that she’s…

SINGLETON: I reject those parallels. That's -- that's my answer. I reject the parallel. I mean, it's a ludicrous parallel.

“Is she wrong, though” ought to be hung in the Louvre of viewpoint bias. The idea that race and ethnic origin are equal to gender dysphoria on the protected class spectrum is ridiculous and we are all Shernichael Singleton, exhausted and irritated at having even to address such nonsense- or watch it on TV. Based on the responses on X, it looks like you are, too.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned segment as aired on CNN NewsNight on Tuesday, May 6th, 2025:

ABBY PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, the Supreme Court says that the Trump administration can immediately start banning transgender troops from serving in the military. The ban had been previously blocked by lower courts, but the court gave no reasoning other than allowing it while those other cases are being challenged. Now, it's worth noting that the court's liberal justices dissented here. Under the new ban, service members with the current diagnosis, history of, or exhibiting symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria will be processed for separation from military service. Joining us now in our fifth seat is Alaina Kupec, a U.S. or nNavy veteran and a former naval intelligence officer. She's the founder and president of the Gender Research Advisory Council in Education, a non- profit organization that's focused on transgender visibility. The -- the main argument, Elena, that the Trump administration is making here is that -- that allowing transgender troops to serve hurts lethality and it hurts readiness. What do you say to that?

ALAINA KUPEC: Well, there's no evidence of that. I think that, you know, if that was the case, we've seen transgender people serving honorably for the last several years and why -- what has changed between now and then? They've just woken up to a new administration who has a different outlook on their ability to serve. So, I think that, you know, if you talk to people who are serving on active duty alongside transgender troops, they're not making these complaints. The leaders in the military are not making these complaints. These are political complaints about military service. So, I think that all of the courts that have looked at this issue and looked at it, you know, and said there's nothing in fact to back up what the government is claiming here. In fact, the judges challenged them to produce evidence, and they couldn't produce any evidence. So, I think it's -- it's a really dark day for our country where, basically, we're allowed to discriminate against a class of people.

PHILLIP: Scott, if they can't produce evidence that this actually does, in fact, have an impact on readiness I mean, how is this not then just discrimination?

SCOTT JENNINGS: Well, it's the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief who, according to our Constitution, is the head of the military. I mean, regardless of anyone's opinion or, you know, anybody's -- whatever side you're on, whether you're for it or against it, at some juncture, the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the military and he has and should have broad latitude to determine how the Armed Forces should be operated. And so, I think that's what he's doing here. I think that's ultimately what the court said today was that the President is the Commander-in-Chief and we got to -- we got to respect that on our consent.

PHILLIP: But I mean to -- to her point, if there's not a downside and it's been going on for years now and, I mean, I'm, just presenting your argument to them.

KUPEC: Yeah.

PHILLIP: What is the argument other than Trump -- Hegseth just doesn't want trans people in the military?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON: Well, I mean, I think that the President -- we'll ultimately see, I think that's why the court is allowing the President to move forward with this until it works itself through the court system, maybe the Supreme Court will be the final arbiter here to say, yeah or nay, you can do this. But ultimately, I think the court is showcasing deference to the executive saying that, look, you're the President, you're over the military, you do for the most part get to sort of dictate the standards of our military. And I don't really see how you can push back against that. Again, we'll see what happens in the court.

JULIE ROGINSKY: I can.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGINSKY: Yeah, I'm sorry. I can. What if the President wakes up tomorrow and says, I don't want any black people in the military? Do we have- could we give deference to him? I'm not well, no, no.

SINGLETON: Okay. Julie, Julie.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: Ridiculous.

ROGINSKY: No, wait a second. It's not ridiculous. It's not ridiculous because you're discriminating against a group of people in a very similar way.

SINGLETON: Julie --

JENNINGS: I knew you were going to say that.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGINSKY: Excuse me. Well, I'm glad you said that.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I'm curious, why is it -- why is it ridiculous? I mean, you just said the President should be the one who just decides.

UNKNOWN: Right.

PHILLIP: So, if he decides, he wakes up tomorrow and says, I think it's bad for morale, it's bad for cohesiveness, for there to be, black people in the military, Latino people in the military. Just in her hypothetical scenario, what's the difference between that and what we're seeing here?

JENNINGS: I mean, are you really going to go down this ridiculous road?

PHILLIP: I'm just --

ROGINSKY: I'm sorry. She's asking --

PHILLIP: I'm asking based--

JENNINGS: Ridiculous. This is a ridiculous argument.

PHILLIP: Well, okay.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: The President -- the President and the Secretary of Defense have an argument here. They believe that readiness and unit cohesion and overall operations of the military are impacted by this. That is their opinion, and that is the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief who the Constitution gives broad latitude to run the Armed Forces. So, that's her opinion. You're allowed to have one. You're allowed to have one. You're also allowed to run for president and become Commander-in-Chief yourself, but until you do -- until you do, he's the Commander-in-Chief.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I have to just say I -- I didn't hear an answer to the hypothetical, right? I just didn't hear it.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: That's not hypothetical though. That's ridiculous. 

PHILLIP: Okay, the definition of discrimination according to the American Psychological Association - discrimination is the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people or groups based on characteristics such as race, gender, age or sexual orientation. What is the difference between, um, you know, prohibiting certain groups like transgender people from serving versus, you know, people based on their race or even their gender, frankly?

SINGLETON: I -- I personally think there's a difference, and I'm just going to leave it at that.

JEMELE HILL: Well, I -- I will say --

JENNINGS: Do you believe that race and are -- are you saying that the quality of race and the quality of transgender are the same?

PHILLIP: I'm just asking the question because I think you're making there's -- there's a distinction but you're not explaining why.

JENNINGS: I'm asking, you -- you guys brought up hypothetical. Are you arguing that someone's race is the same as someone choosing to become transgender?

PHILLIP: Alaina?

KUPEC: But -- but your argument -- you -- you've made the argument twice that the Commander-of-Chief's opinion is all that matters. You've said that twice now.

JENNINGS: Well, so does the Constitution, yes.

KUPEC: So, if he wakes up tomorrow and says, it's not okay to be gay or lesbian in service, because that's his opinion, there's nothing to back that up. They meet the physical standards, they meet the intellectual standards, they have voluntarily decided to serve their country, to give their life for this country, so many of us don't have to, that it's the opinion without any basis in fact that that's what matters more than the Constitution of equal rights and equal protection.

JENNINGS: My -- go ahead.

HILL: No, I was going to say the other thing, or there's a few things that bothered me about this, and mostly it was the language of the policy, right? When you're -- look when looking -- reading at some of these words, transgender people as in- as inherently untruthful, undisciplined, dishonorable. That's like a very weighty thing to say about people who are courageously deciding to protect this country. The other problem, Scott, is that it's never enough. It's bathrooms today. It's sports today. It's sports tomorrow. It's the military today.

JENNINGS: No, it's also sports today, by the way.

HILL: Yeah. It is sports today.

JENNINGS: Eighty percent of Americans agree about it.

HILL: Yeah. Oh, that's fine. And 80 percent -- guess what? The majority sometimes is wrong. That also happens, right? Because the majority used to believe that doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was --

JENNINGS: Okay.

HILL: -- somebody who was a threat and somebody who was not a good American. The majority of people used to be against civil rights. Were they right? No, they weren't. And so, the whole point is when you target one group and inevitably that line moves to everybody else. And I'm not saying he's coming for black people tomorrow, but considering that this is a military or this is a -- a leadership that is already using DEI as code word for black people already when it comes to the military, suddenly, when you don't protect the most vulnerable, you wind up making it worse for everybody else that's in the marriage of the marginalized --

JENNINGS: What do you think about what?

HILL: You don't think trans people are vulnerable in this country?

JENNINGS: So, are -- is it your position that the Commander-in-Chief should recruit people who you're describing as vulnerable into the --

HILL: No. He should -- he should he should recruit people who want to serve and protect this country. And it's really kind of ironic considering he dodged the draft that he's trying to -- he suddenly has an opinion about -- Or else we'll be suddenly getting a point of elections. And, Elena, you -- you pointed this out. This is going through the court system.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: He has an opinion because he won the election.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: And Alaina, you pointed this out. This is going through the courses. The other side has the opportunity to present evidence.

KUPEC: Except for tomorrow, there should be thousands of people who wake up and get processed out. The harm will be done.

SINGLETON: And I certainly understand that, but again, there's still an opportunity for it to continue through the proper process.

KUPEC: But they -- they wake up tomorrow without a job, being removed from their commands. Operational readiness will be impacted, and so there's commands that are going to be left without leaders. There's going to be real-life implications for leaders around the world where our military is protecting this country, and for what end? SINGLETON: So, I guess, Alaina, I guess my point is if a strong enough evidence is presented throughout the court process all the way up to SCOTUS and it's ultimately believed okay, hey, the other side has enough evidence where we can't rule in favor of the executive, then the executive, I believe, would respect that -- that decision. But we have to allow this thing to move forward and see --

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: What was your experience in the military like? Did you serve while you had, after you had transitioned?

KUPEC: No, I served before my transition.

JENNINGS: So, you weren't in during your --

KUPEC: No.

JENNINGS: Okay.

KUPEC: I came to know that I was transgender while I was serving with a top secret and above clearance, and I knew that I couldn't pass my polygraph test, and so I had to make a tough decision. Do I stay true to my character, my values, my integrity, or do I choose to leave this role and live a private life?

And so I think that the challenge is that the injunction was to allow people to continue to serve while the courts played out, right? So there would be no harm done to these folks, giving the courts an opportunity to work through these issues. So, people wouldn't lose their jobs. Now, they're going to wake up tomorrow without jobs. They can't just come back in for serving 22 years, waiting for this court case to work its way through for six, nine months, two years.

JENNINGS: So, you hadn't trans-- so was there a prohibition on you transitioning while you were in the military?

KUPEC: Back in that time, there was a ban against serving if you were -- the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

PHILLIP: Yeah. This was in the mid-'90s.

KUPEC: This was in the mid- '90s.

PHILLIP: Yeah.

PHILLIP: So, but let me -- can I ask you a question because I think this is relevant. You know, Alaina was serving, left because of this policy. How many people is it okay to lose who are competent, who are doing their jobs because for -- for those -- for reasons like that? I mean, at the time, she could have been a gay or lesbian and it probably would have been the same result, as well. I mean, I think that's why ultimately they ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".

JENNINGS: I mean, I -- I think --

 

KUPEC: Discrimination.

PHILLIP: Yeah.

JENNINGS: I mean, I think ultimately, the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of Defense have to decide comprehensively about troop levels, troop readiness and unit cohesion.

KUPEC: But that is --

JENNINGS: And overall recruitment. They're actually quite happy with recruitment right now.

KUPEC: But that has never -- there have never been a military standard that transgender people have not met. So, the military standards have not been lowered for people who are transgender. And I think that's -- that's the issue here. And the courts that have looked at this issue in-depth have said this is pure animus. That there is no evidence of this. So, if you actually take the rhetoric out of it and look at the issue at its heart, all the courts say the same thing. So, I think that's the travesty here.

JENNINGS: I believe the President has the Constitutional right to do this, and I also think you have the Constitutional right to make your case on it, and everybody's going to be in court about it. And I think you should continue to make --

(CROSSTALK)

ROGINSKY: But you also -- sorry, but you also talked about unit cohesion, and that's exactly the same kind of argument that they made against integrating the military when Harry Truman did it. I'm sorry. It's the same argument.

SINGLETON: Here we go again with this shit. Okay.

ROGINSKY: It's the same --

PHILLIP: I mean, is she wrong about that, though? I mean, she is right about that from a factual perspective.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGINSKY: There were people who did not want to serve white as white --

SINGLETON: I'm -- I'm aware. I'm aware.

ROGINSKY: White people didn't listen to black people because of unit cohesions. And now you're saying gay can --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: We only have a couple of seconds? Shermichael, I -- see that you're -- you're frustrated that she made that argument. But is she wrong that unit cohesion was used as an excuse to keep the military segregated for a long time?

SINGLETON: I think we should --

PHILLIP: And also "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" when it comes to --

SINGLETON: -- focus on --

PHILLIP: -- discriminating against gay and lesbian people.

SINGLETON: We should focus on the issue at hand. That's what I think.

ROGINSKY: Same like, same argument.

SINGLETON: But I - I --

PHILLIP: So, no. Just no answer.

SINGLETON: No, we should focus on this issue at hand. I don't know why we keep going to bringing up race. Let's just focus on this issue right here.

PHILLIP: Well, look, it’s race, sexual orientation. We've seen this twice, right? In two major junctures for the military. I'm just wondering, if she is drawing parallels here between the arguments that are being made to maintain this policy, do you think that she’s…

SINGLETON: I reject those parallels. That's -- that's my answer. I reject the parallel. I mean, it's a ludicrous parallel.

ROGINSKY: I have some question. Do you feel like you had a choice in your life as to what you were going to do?

KUPEC: No.

ROGINSKY: No, of course not.

KUPEC: No.

ROGINSKY: The same way that I didn't have a choice to be born who I was. The same way you didn't have a choice to be born who you were. So, why do we get exclusions and she doesn't?

SINGLETON: I didn't say that, Alaina --

ROGINSKY: Well, not Alaina.

SINGLETON: -- that she'll be excluded.

ROGINSKY: Okay. Why under this -- under this president's policy?

SINGLETON: My opinion here is let it work itself through the court system. 

KUPEC: And -- and I have no problem with that. That's just - Don't fire people while it's working through the courts. That's what these injunctions were doing was letting it work through the courts. And the Supreme Court, I think, really just delegitimized itself even further today. And I think that's a challenge for all of this country when we don't have the checks and balances of the courts, you know, checking their executive power and Congress checking the executive power and all of those things. Because at the end of the day right now in the military, you can be a white supremacist, a known white supremacist, and serve in this military, but you cannot be transgender and serve in this military. That's a fact.

PHILLIP: All right. Alaina Kupec, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, stay with us. We are just hours away from Catholic cardinals holding their first vote to elect the next pope. More on the papal conclave. That's coming up next.

 

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