President Donald Trump is directly targeting transgender children in their homes and schools.
After signing an executive order Tuesday banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth under the age of 19, he signed another executive order Wednesday to cut funding for programs that promote “gender ideology.”
“Young men and women are made to question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed,” the latest order states.
Alternatively, the executive order pushes the idea of a “patriotic education” detached from ideas such as gender or critical race theory.
Chris Geidner, a legal reporter and analyst who publishes Law Dork, wrote on BlueSky that this executive order will “undoubtedly” be used to “create more oppressive environments for trans students.”
As for Trump’s ban on medical care, the executive order follows a Supreme Court hearing in December, U.S. v. Skrmetti, regarding a similar ban in Tennessee.
Chase Strangio, ACLU’s lead counsel and co-director of the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project, argued before the Supreme Court that day, and he issued a statement provided to Daily Kos regarding the executive order.
“President Trump has shown a clear determination to drive transgender people out of public life while attempting to control our families, our bodies, and our lives,” the statement read. “Today’s order lays out a clear plan to shut down access to life-saving medical care for transgender youth nationwide, overriding the role of families and putting politics between patients and their doctors. We will not allow this dangerous, sweeping, and unconstitutional order to stand.”
The use of puberty blockers and rare cases of underage gender-reassignment surgeries in transgender youth were thrust into the spotlight on the campaign trail.
And while some die-hard Trumpers might be thinking that transgender children popped out of nowhere in the past few years, the reality is that transgender youth have been using FDA-approved puberty blockers since the 1980s.
But starting in 2021, states began banning gender-affirming medications for children, leading to an avalanche of more than 400 anti-trans bills.
Both executive orders are likely to be challenged in court.
The openly transphobic president has also signed an executive order that will effectively ban transgender people from the military. To avoid getting wrapped up in more legal battles, he’s hiding behind the language of “troop readiness.”
In other words, Trump’s executive order claims that transgender people are too mentally unstable to be fit for war.
Nevertheless, civil rights groups Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign are gearing up for a legal battle.
“Thousands of transgender troops are combat-tested, having been deployed to war zones and executed missions with distinction, many of whom are senior personnel with decades of experience,” Lambda Legal Counsel and Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project Director Sasha Buchert told Daily Kos.
“It will hurt unit cohesion because it will discriminate against otherwise qualified service members,” Buchert continued, “sending the message that identity rather than merit is what is important and that some discrimination is acceptable.”
Daily Kos is now on Bluesky—and we want to make it easy for you to join us! Click here for the Daily Kos Bluesky Starter Pack.
