On his first day back in office, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order affirming that there are only two sexes—male and female—and that a person’s sex is determined at conception, with no possibility of change.

How Trump Uses Language to Attack the Idea of Transgender Identity

Subsequently, through a series of executive orders, he implemented several policies targeting transgender Americans, a community of approximately 1.6 million people. These orders address various aspects of life, including education, healthcare, prison systems, housing, and passports, and reverse government stances on the inclusion of trans individuals in the military, their participation in sports, and their protection under sex-based anti-discrimination laws.

Legal challenges have already begun, and more are anticipated. The extensive nature of these orders, along with their language and tone, leads both transgender advocates and Trump supporters to believe that the underlying goal is not just policy change but an attempt to discredit the legitimacy of transgender identities and deny their recognition.https://svtoday.org/

The debate surrounding transgender issues is deeply divisive. Polls indicate that many Americans support protecting trans people from discrimination, but they also feel that society has gone too far in accommodating them. A Gallup poll last month showed that a majority of Americans still support allowing transgender individuals to serve openly in the military, though that support has declined since 2019. Additionally, nearly 80% of respondents in a recent New York Times/Ipsos poll oppose allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports.

What sets these executive orders apart is their framing of the debate in moral terms, presenting transgender people as dishonest and lacking integrity, and thereby unworthy of legal rights. For instance, the orders employ the term “biological reality” to insinuate that trans individuals are engaging in deliberate deception, a harmful stereotype historically used to justify violence against them. This term appears six times in the first executive order alone.

The military-related executive order states that expressing a gender identity that differs from one’s biological sex “cannot meet the rigorous standards required for military service.” Meanwhile, the order on sports insists that the participation of transgender women and girls in female sports should be prohibited, not only for reasons of safety and fairness but also on the grounds of “dignity and truth.”

“This is among the worst outcomes I had feared,” said Alex Chen, director of the LGBTQ advocacy clinic at Harvard Law School. “They are directly attacking the legitimacy of transgender existence. There’s no other way to put it.”

For many trans rights advocates, gender identity—how individuals perceive themselves as male, female, or something else—is seen as more fluid and a broader spectrum than traditional concepts of sex would suggest. They argue that gender identity is a fundamental aspect of a person’s sex, potentially influenced by biological factors.

To define sex purely as a physical trait fixed at conception “ignores the complexity of our bodies and lived experiences,” said Raquel Willis, co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movement, a trans advocacy group.

However, many of Trump’s supporters, spanning the political spectrum, view the push to prioritize gender identity over biological sex as an overreach. They argue that society’s growing focus on gender identity clashes with what they believe are fundamental biological differences between men and women. The language of Trump’s orders reflects the anger surrounding this cultural divide, particularly regarding issues like pronoun usage and transgender athletes in women’s sports.

“People want to recognize biological realities and express them without being labeled a bigot,” said Roger Severino of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, which contributed to the creation of many of Trump’s policies. He argued that the orders “restore words to their common-sense, scientifically grounded meanings.”

The president’s five executive orders, totaling more than 10,000 words, assert that denying the biological reality of sex deprives women of their “dignity, safety, and well-being,” with far-reaching consequences for American society. The first order defines women as those who produce large reproductive cells, while men are those who produce small reproductive cells.

Even critics of the transgender rights movement find the language of the orders excessively harsh. Doriane Coleman, a Duke University law professor specializing in gender and sports, has advocated for a return to the definition of “sex” in federal law that Trump’s orders use. However, she criticizes the tone, saying, “Instead of simply saying, ‘The trans movement has gone too far,’ these orders go further, implying that trans people are false, defective, and undeserving of recognition. This is both incorrect and deeply frightening for trans people.”

One order specifically targets medical treatments for transgender minors, an area of intense debate. Several states have banned doctors from administering puberty blockers, hormones, or surgeries to minors, and some European countries are conducting research to assess the efficacy of these treatments. Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics continues to endorse these interventions, citing their potential to alleviate psychological distress in transgender youth.

Trump’s order, however, condemns these treatments as “a stain on our nation’s history” and dismisses the medical guidelines as “junk science.” It instructs federal agencies to withhold funding from hospitals and medical schools that provide transgender medical care to those under 19, referring to it as “maiming.”

A lawsuit filed last week challenging the order’s constitutionality criticized its title, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” calling it “false and repugnant.”

The executive order concerning transgender military personnel is particularly contentious. It argues that transgender identity “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in their personal life,” and equates it with mental health conditions like bipolar disorder, which are disqualifying for military service.

At a recent hearing, federal judge Ana Reyes questioned whether the language used in the order revealed animus toward transgender people, which could affect its constitutionality. “Isn’t this the type of animus the Supreme Court has consistently ruled against?” she asked.

To many, Trump’s orders are seen as a long-awaited correction to President Joe Biden’s own directive, issued on his first day in office, which extended federal anti-discrimination policies to include gender identity, citing the 2020 Supreme Court ruling that protects transgender employees under civil rights laws. Some conservative voices took issue with Biden’s directive, arguing that it was an overreach, while at least Trump’s orders “provide rationale and reason.”

Trans activists argue that Trump’s orders have intensified an already dangerous climate for a vulnerable population. Courts have already intervened, blocking the Bureau of Prisons from housing transgender women with male inmates and from denying transgender medical treatment.

However, some trans activists see an opportunity in this debate. Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, transgender issues have often been framed under the broader LGBTQ umbrella. “We’ve never had a full, public debate about transgender identity the way we did about gay identity,” said Alex Chen of Harvard Law School. “Ultimately, I think we will need to fight this battle on the merits in the public eye.”