If you’re out of the loop or intentionally avoiding social media and the news cycle, then I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this. Two executive orders were written yesterday by Donald Trump that specifically target transgender rights and freedoms. One targeting the rights of transgender members of the military, another targeting the healthcare rights of transgender youth. These orders state in no uncertain terms that trans people are unsafe evil liars deserving of contempt and exclusion. This is not an exaggeration, and the shift in the narrative behind these executive orders is extremely alarming and likely to be seen again as the basis for further attacks against us.
There is a narrative created by these two orders. A narrative that trans people are dishonorable, that trans people lack selflessness and humility, and that we are liars. That we are wrong that our existence is wrong. That it doesn’t matter whether transition decreases our suicide rate, whether it allows us to live happy, fulfilling lives. That death itself is preferable to the existence of an adult trans person. That being transgender is by itself wrong and makes us worth less than cisgender people. A narrative that children must be protected from becoming transgender people, even if it means they die. That no one can be allowed to think that being transgender is alright, that it’s okay to be a transgender person.
This cannot go unchallenged. It’s not enough for trans people to resist alone. This has to come from as man voices as possible. The writing is on the wall. This amounts to dehumanizing persecution intended to foster perceptions of us as inhuman. It is going to get worse. This is week 2. What awaits us in a year no one can say for sure. We need protests we need civil disobedience. We need to help our most vulnerable get out. We need to protect trans youth.
Please refer to the transgender resistance network for mutual aid and help. I had tried last year to organize something here but was not capable of it due to problems in my own personal life.
We need solidarity. We need to help each other. And we have to resist. Not just these orders, not just this narrative, but we have to resist the fall into hopelessness and acceptance. We have to fight. Our lives have value. Our lives are worth the same as anyone else. Don’t let them get to you, don’t believe in the narrative. Transition saved my life, maybe it saved yours too. Transitioning and seeing others transition has been the most beautiful and rewarding experience of my life. I refuse to accept a reality in which we are forced into closets, forced into hiding. I beg of everyone to join me in refusing that outcome.
Links to the two executive orders:
- Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness
- Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation
Coverage from Erin in the Morning, more on the military ban than the healthcare EO: https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/the-chilling-line-trump-just-crossed
Maybe a pedantic distinction, but executive orders are not bills or laws, they only reach as far as the executive branch has power.
This is relevant because he is writing many illegal executive orders, e.g. trying to end birthright citizenship despite being encoded in the Constitution. Likewise, banning trans healthcare for minors across the U.S. is something only Congress can do, and most of the things in this EO are attempting to defund or otherwise attack that healthcare rather than outright ban it like a law would.
It does seem like an obvious consequence is that Medicare and Medicaid won’t cover gender affirming care for minors (Sec. 5, part i), and he is going to try to use existing laws to try to bring prosecute people in shield states for providing that care, even if he fails in court it will do damage by scaring providers into voluntarily refusing care to avoid being involved in lawsuits.
Also it does look like this trans healthcare EO is trying to recreate the UK’s Cass Review, (Sec. 3, part ii):
within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) shall publish a review of the existing literature on best practices for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion.
By appointing loyalists across organizations he can force authorities on health to support anti-trans views on that are not supported by the evidence. Not unlike how he appointed anti-environmentalists to the head of the EPA in his first term, and suddenly the EPA was taking positions that were contrary to the role of the organization, like rolling back regulations on the coal industry.
Trump is just going to try shit, but that doesn’t mean it will work out for him in the end.
