Tag: gender

Iowa approves bill removing gender identity protections despite massive protests

*This is reported by PBS

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa moved to remove gender identity protections from the state’s civil rights code Thursday despite massive protests by opponents who say it could expose transgender people to discrimination in numerous areas of life.

The Iowa House approved the bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, less than an hour after the state Senate backed the legislation. First introduced last week, the measure raced through the legislative process.

Hundreds of LGBTQ+ advocates streamed into the Capitol rotunda on Thursday waving signs reading “Trans rights are human rights” and chanting slogans including “No hate in our state!” There was a heavy police presence, with state troopers stationed around the rotunda. Of the 167 people who signed up to testify at the public hearing before a House committee, all but 24 were opposed to the bill.

Protesters that watched the vote from the House gallery loudly booed and shouted “Shame!” as the House adjourned. Many admonished Iowa state Rep. Steven Holt, who floor managed the bill and delivered a fierce defense of it before it passed.

The bill would remove gender identity as a protected class from the state’s civil rights law and explicitly define female and male, as well as gender, which would be considered a synonym for sex and “shall not be considered a synonym or shorthand expression for gender identity, experienced gender, gender expression, or gender role.”

The measure would be the first legislative action removing nondiscrimination protections based on gender identity, said Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank.

Supporters of the change say the current law incorrectly codified the idea that people can transition to another gender and granted transgender women access to spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams that should be protected for people who were assigned female at birth.

The legislation now goes to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has been supportive of efforts to limit gender identity protections.

The Iowa lawmakers’ actions came on the same day the Georgia House backed away from removing gender protections from the state’s hate crimes law, which was passed in 2020 after the death of Ahmaud Arbery.

Iowa’s current civil rights law protects against discrimination based on race, color, creed, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin or disability status.

Sexual orientation and gender identity were not originally included in the state’s Civil Rights Act of 1965. They were added by the Democratic-controlled Legislature in 2007, also with the support of about a dozen Republicans across the two chambers.

Iowa Republicans say their changes are intended to reinforce the state’s ban on sports participation and public bathroom access for transgender students. If approved, the bill would go to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who signed those policies into law. A spokesperson for Reynolds declined to comment on whether she would sign the bill.

V Fixmer-Oraiz, a county supervisor in eastern Johnson County, was the first to testify against the bill at the public hearing. A trans Iowan, they said they have faced their “fair share of discrimination” already and worried that the bill will expose trans Iowans to even more.

“Is it not the role of government to affirm rather than to deny law-abiding citizens their inalienable rights?” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “The people of Iowa deserve better.”

Among those speaking in support of the bill was Shellie Flockhart of Dallas Center, who said she is in favor as a woman and a mother, a “defender of women’s rights” and someone “who believes in the truth of God’s creation.”

“Identity does not change biology,” Flockhart said.

About half of U.S. states include gender identity in their civil rights code to protect against discrimination in housing and public places, such as stores or restaurants, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Some additional states do not explicitly protect against such discrimination but it is included in legal interpretations of statutes.

Iowa’s Supreme Court has expressly rejected the argument that discrimination based on sex includes discrimination based on gender identity.

Several Republican-led legislatures are also pushing to enact more laws this year creating legal definitions of male and female based on the reproductive organs at birth following an executive order from President Donald Trump.

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More Americans than ever identify as LGBTQ+

*This was reported by LGBTQNation.com

The number of Americans identifying as LGBTQ+ continued to rise, according to the latest Gallup poll.

In 2024, 9.3% of U.S. adults identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something other than heterosexual.

That’s an increase of more than one point since a 2023 survey, double the number from 2020, and up from 3.5% when Gallup first asked about sexual identity in 2012.

14,000 respondents in a phone survey were asked, “Which of the following do you consider yourself to be? You can select as many as apply. Straight or heterosexual; Lesbian; Gay; Bisexual; Transgender.”

Overall, 85.7% say they are straight, 5.2% are bisexual, 2.0% are gay, 1.4% are lesbian, and 1.3% are transgender. Just under 1% mention another LGBTQ+ identity, such as pansexual, asexual, or queer. Five percent of respondents declined to answer the question.

The survey found LGBTQ+ identification is increasing as younger generations of Americans enter adulthood. Younger people are much more likely than older generations to say they are something other than heterosexual.

Both Gen Z and millennials came of age with the expansion of LGBTQ+ rights, marriage equality, and greater representation in the culture.

More than one in five Gen Z adults — those born between 1997 and 2006, who were between the ages of 18 and 27 in 2024 — identify as LGBTQ+. Each older generation of adults, from millennials to the Silent Generation, has successively lower rates of identification, down to 1.8% among the oldest Americans, those born before 1946.

The largest increase was among younger people identifying as bisexual. 59% of LGBTQ+ Gen Z Americans (ages 18-27) called themselves bisexual, along with more than half (52%) of LGBTQ+ millennials (ages 28-43).

Among the nearly 900 LGBTQ+ individuals Gallup interviewed last year, more than half, 56%, said they were bisexual. Twenty-one percent said they were gay, 15% lesbian, 14% transgender, and 6% something else. These figures total more than 100% because the survey allows respondents to report multiple LGBTQ+ identities.

The overall estimate of 9.3% of U.S. adults who identify as LGBTQ+ counts each respondent only once, even if they have multiple identities.

The survey broke down LGBTQ+ identification associated with sex, politics, and geography, as well.

Democrats (14%) and independents (11%) are far more likely than Republicans (3%) to identify as LGBTQ+.

21% of liberals, compared with 8% of moderates and 3% of conservatives, say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

LGBTQ+ identification is higher among people living in cities (11%) and suburbs (10%) than in rural areas (7%).

College graduates (9%) and nongraduates (10%) are about equally likely to identify as LGBTQ+, while 10% of women versus 6% of men say they are LGBTQ+. That gender gap is most pronounced in younger generations.

31% of Gen Z women versus 12% of Gen Z men identify as LGBTQ+, with most of those younger women saying they are bisexual.

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Kansas Lawmakers Override Veto of Ban on Transition Care for Minors

*This was reported by the NY Times

The Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature on Tuesday overrode the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill that bans gender-transition treatments for minors, fulfilling a longtime goal of conservative lawmakers and joining about half of the country’s states in enacting bans or sharp limits on those procedures.

The Kansas bill had broad Republican support, but its status had been uncertain because of the opposition of Gov. Laura Kelly, who said it was “disappointing that the Legislature continues to push for government interference in Kansans’ private medical decisions.” Ms. Kelly vetoed similar bills in each of the last two years, and lawmakers had previously failed to override her.

This time, Republicans in both chambers mustered the two-thirds margin necessary to override her and celebrated the decision as following President Trump’s lead on the issue. Kansas had been among the only states where Republicans hold significant legislative power without such a law.

“Today, a supermajority of the Kansas Senate declared that Kansas is no longer a sanctuary state” for those procedures, Senator Ty Masterson, the chamber’s president, said in a statement.

Republican supporters of the measure, which bans hormone treatments, puberty blockers and transition surgeries for transgender patients younger than 18, described it as guarding young people from life-altering choices that they could later regret. Under the new law, doctors who provide those treatments to minors could lose their licenses and be sued by patients or their parents.

The shift in Kansas comes as President Trump and his administration crack down on gender transitions for minors nationally, seeking to end funding for hospitals that provide those treatments. The Trump administration has also moved to ban trans women and girls from competing in women’s sports, to bar trans people from serving openly in the military, to house trans women who are federal prisoners with men, and to no longer reflect the gender identities of trans people on passports.

Democrats and L.G.B.T.Q. advocates called the Kansas legislation an invasion of privacy that would have devastating health consequences. In her veto message, Ms. Kelly said “infringing on parental rights is not appropriate, nor is it a Kansas value,” and warned that enacting the measure could have economic consequences.

“This legislation will also drive families, businesses, and health care workers out of our state, stifling our economy and exacerbating our workforce shortage issue,” the governor wrote.

The new law comes as part of a broader push by Republicans in Kansas, a state that Mr. Trump carried last year by 16 percentage points, to place limits on transgender people. Kansas stopped changing birth certificates to reflect gender identity in 2023 after lawmakers overrode another veto by Ms. Kelly and passed a law defining male and female as a person’s sex at birth.

But as Republicans across the country have moved in recent years to restrict transition treatments for minors, Kansas had remained an outlier on the Great Plains. Bans or severe limits are already in place in three of its four bordering states — Colorado is the exception — and across much of the rest of the Midwest.

Bans elsewhere have been challenged in state and federal courts with a range of preliminary outcomes. Many expect the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately decide whether there is a national right to access such treatments.

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Trans youth care ban vetoed by Kansas governor again

*This was published by ABC News.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has vetoed Senate Bill 63, which would have restricted gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

“Right now, the legislature should be focused on ways to help Kansans cope with rising prices,” Kelly said in a statement emailed late Tuesday. “That is the most important issue for Kansans. That is where my focus is.”

The bill would bar health care providers from administering gender-affirming medical care – including puberty suppressants and hormone therapies – for someone under the age of 18, only for the purposes of gender transitioning. The ban would also apply to gender-affirming surgeries.

“Infringing on parental rights is not appropriate, nor is it a Kansas value,” said Kelly in her veto message. “As I’ve said before, it is not the job of politicians to stand between a parent and a child who needs medical care of any kind. This legislation will also drive families, businesses, and health care workers out of our state, stifling our economy and exacerbating our workforce shortage issue.”

This is the third time Kelly has vetoed similar transgender youth care bills, but the bill may now have the support to pass.

The bill passed the state legislature with flying colors – passing the House 83-35 and the Senate 32-8.

In 2023, the attempt to override a past trans care ban veto lost in the House 82-43.

State Republicans quickly denounced Kelly’s veto.

“The governor’s devotion to extreme left-wing ideology knows no bounds, vetoing a bipartisan bill that prevents the mutilation of minors,” said State Sen. Ty Masterson in an online statement. “The Senate stands firmly on the side of protecting Kansas children and will swiftly override her veto before the ink from her pen is dry.”

Top national medical associations such as the American Medical Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and American Academy of Pediatrics and more than 20 others argue that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial, and medically necessary for transgender populations.

Kelly joins governors past and present in Ohio and Arkansas in vetoing bills that targeted gender-affirming youth care. However, both of their vetoes were overridden.

Across the country, trans youth care restrictions have faced legal hurdles in their enforcement.

The battle and debate has most recently made its way to the national stage, with the Supreme Court considering U.S. v. Skrmetti, which will decide if Tennessee’s law banning some gender-affirming care for transgender minors violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

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The State Department is blocking new passports for trans Americans

*This was originally published on 19thNews.org

The State Department is no longer issuing U.S. passports with “X” gender markers and has suspended processing all applications from Americans seeking to update their passports with a new gender marker. This suspension, made in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order signaling his administration’s opposition to gender diversity, affects all transgender and nonbinary Americans, including those currently traveling or overseas. 

The agency says that it will issue guidance on previously issued passports with an “X” marker and that more information will be available on its travel website. However, no formal policy has been released, which is fueling confusion among trans and nonbinary people trying to update their documents. 

That includes Ash Lazarus Orr, a trans activist living in West Virginia. Orr applied to update their name and gender marker on their passport on January 16 — days before Trump was sworn into office. He paid $300 for expedited service, but his paperwork wasn’t processed until January 22. When Orr called the agency’s hotline for Americans waiting on passports who have upcoming international travel, they were told that the agency had no guidance to offer and that their documents had been “set aside.” 

Now Orr is without his passport, without his birth certificate and without his marriage license. Over the phone, he was told that his documents are being held in San Francisco, where they were originally being processed. 

“They have my documentation that is very personal to me, and they cannot tell me if I’m going to be getting that back,” they said. 

The American Civil Liberties Union has warned trans and nonbinary Americans that if they submit a new application to change the gender marker on their passport, they risk losing access to their passport and supporting documents while their application is being processed. An ACLU spokesperson attributed this information to reports of discrimination received through the organization’s online intake form, as well as direct conversations with people who have described this happening to them. 

Trump’s executive order directed federal agencies to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports and visas, reflect sex assigned at birth. Since this order states that it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female, and that these sexes are not changeable, “the department’s issuance of U.S. passports will reflect the individual’s biological sex,” an agency spokesperson said in an emailed statement on Friday evening. Under Trump’s executive order, “sex” explicitly excludes gender identity.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly instructed agency staff on Thursday to implement that executive order as it pertains to passports immediately, as first reported by The Guardian and The Intercept. Now, Orr is without his personal identity documents six weeks before pre-planned international travel and in the middle of planning a move out of West Virginia. 

The Biden administration made it easier for trans and nonbinary people to update their federal identity documents. Accurate and consistent gender markers on identity documents dramatically reduces the risk that trans people will face violence, harassment and discrimination, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks LGBTQ+ policy.

The dismantling of this policy has radical consequences, said a former State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of lingering retaliation from the agency under the Trump administration. Not only does it force transgender people to carry identity documents that don’t accurately reflect their identity, this move also signals globally that U.S. policy on trans rights is moving backward, they said. 

“The confusion that this decision creates is intentional. It is designed to make things harder for trans and nonbinary people,” they said.

When The 19th called the National Passport Information Center on January 23 to ask for more information, an employee on the technical support desk said that the State Department is aware of Trump’s executive order and that guidance will be posted online once information is available. 

Erin Ryan Heyneman, a nonbinary person living in Massachusetts, called that same hotline. They don’t need to renew their passport; they said they just wanted to find out what was going on. Although they feel safe in their state, which has nondiscrimination protections in place for LGBTQ+ people, they still felt the need to act because of the way confusion can endanger their wider community.

“People just really don’t know who to believe or what to believe,” they said. More LGBTQ+ people need to seek information from trusted sources, they said. But when trying to seek that information from an official source, Heyneman was met with more uncertainty. The employee on the phone was sympathetic, but they had no information about passports being confiscated. 

As Orr waits to learn whether they will get their passport back due to federal anti-trans policies, they are facing down the prospect of leaving their home because of transphobia within the state. 

West Virginia has become increasingly hostile to trans and nonbinary people like himself amid a surge in anti-trans rhetoric across the country, and Orr expects a surge in state anti-trans bills introduced in West Virginia’s next legislative session. After receiving death threats and recently being attacked inside a men’s bathroom, he doesn’t leave the house without his spouse. 

“I can’t stay in the state. And it’s heartbreaking, because I love it here. I love the people, but it is truly, at this point in time, it’s either I leave or I die,” they said.

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I was misgendered for having “female breasts” as a kid. Here’s why it hurt.

*This commentary by Matt Keeley was originally published by LGBTNation.

Some cisgender people think the recent Republican fad of banning of transgender people from sports and bathrooms won’t affect them, and that if people just conform closely to gender stereotypes, they won’t have trouble. But these don’t realize that random nuts have confronted cis women in the ladies’ room just for wearing pants and having short hair.

Gender policing goes from controlling how we look to controlling how we behave. And cis people who have never been misgendered may not realize just how much it can hurt… but as a cis man who has been misgendered, I do.

As a kid, I had gynecomastia, a condition where prominent breasts develop on a boy or man. And my breasts were indeed prominent — probably a C- or D-cup in bra size. It started around when I was 10 or so. While we never figured out the reason, it doesn’t really matter when you’re in middle school and kids confront you in the bathroom, calling you “titty boy.” 

Even friends would make the occasional crack to my chagrin. I remember once talking about how my uncle’s internal organs were backwards; one of my friends immediately joked, “And you’ve got two hearts: here and here,” gesturing at each breast. It didn’t feel great!

I hated my breasts. I often fantasized about chopping them off. It was never gory or gross in my mind — it usually was more like picking off a scab — a little bit of pain at first, but then perfectly fine with a normal chest just like every other boy.

The teasing changed my relationship with my body. My nipples usually inverted into my areolas by nature. But whenever they weren’t, I’d push them back in because, in my weird kid mind, women’s breasts had outward-facing nipples for babies to feed. If mine pointed inward, then that meant they weren’t breasts like what women had, and were…. something different.

I didn’t know the word “dysmorphia” at the time, but looking back, it seems like a manifestation of that. Most of all, I wanted to ignore that my breasts even existed. I hated even using the word “breast” in any context. While taking swimming lessons, I’d refer to the breaststroke as the “whip-kick stroke” based on the leg movements. When I wore collared shirts, they had chest pockets — men had chests, women had breasts.

While the teasing and bullying was bad, unintentional cruelty was somehow even worse. One expects bullies to be mean and to focus on one’s flaws. But if someone unintentionally misgendered me, it felt like they couldn’t help but hurt me, based solely on my appearance, infringing on my misguided attempts to ignore and feel indifferent to my own body.

One moment that’s seared in my brain (and will be for the rest of my life) happened around age 11 one afternoon at an office supply store. I needed a new graphing calculator for math class. I approached a worker kneeling on the floor, re-stocking the bottom shelf. 

“Pardon me, do you know where the graphing calculators are?” I asked.

“Oh, sure, sir,” he said, turning and seeing my shoes. 

His eyes raised to my chest and said, “…ma’am…”

His eyes then hit my face and he quickly went back to “sir,” before telling me where they were located.

I could tell he wasn’t being mean, he was just processing the visual stimuli in the order presented. I could tell he was embarrassed and neither of us wanted to call attention to his error, so I thanked him, and went to pick up the TI-85 calculator I needed. 

I have no idea if he remembers that day at all. Probably not. But it’s a moment I relive over and over. I was wearing my standard uniform of jeans and a loose-fitting green/yellow Hypercolor T-shirt — it was the early ‘90s after all.

It’s hard to explain why it hurt so much to be mistaken for a woman. It wasn’t merely that it proved I was “different” from other boys. It wasn’t shame at being seen as a woman or less than “manly” — in fact, I don’t think real-or-perceived misogyny played a part in what happened or how I felt. I’ve always had various “feminine”-coded interests even as a kid: In first grade, I loved The Baby-Sitter’s Club book series (which features mostly girl characters) and I’d often pretend to be the magical Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle from the classic children’s novels.

The misgendering bothered me more so because it just wasn’t me — I wasn’t being perceived correctly. I couldn’t put it into words; I wasn’t necessarily “manly” and had no real desire to be seen as such, but I was a man (or at least, I would be one day when I grew up).

I was lucky; I was able to get a breast reduction — top surgery in trans masc parlance — the summer I turned 13. My surgeon, Dr. Kropp — whose name somewhat matched his surgical specialty — was excellent, and confirmed that I had excess breast tissue, not just fat. 

That fall, I came into a new school as a high school freshman, and no one ever commented on my chest again; I was thankfully average. Friends even seemingly forgot about it, and no one asked about the change.

It took me a very long time to get over it — my chest was the one thing I was sensitive about. I’m pushing 45 now; it’s been 30 years, and the wounds have finally scabbed over. (The figurative ones, I mean. As for the actual surgical scars, those healed very nicely and relatively quickly after the procedure.)

But it took decades for me to get over the misgendering. And I immediately “passed as male” otherwise, if you wanted to call it that. It was just: one day boobs, one day none. So I can only imagine the pain that accumulates over when a trans person gets misidentified for so long, sometimes even after transitioning. 

Misgendering can lead to depression and psychological distress. (It certainly did for me.) It can also create a sense of emotional exhaustion. I know that when I came home from a particularly bad day at school, I just wanted to shove everything out of my mind, and just veg in front of the TV. But the teasing made me think about self-obliteration. I never attempted suicide — but the idea of just not existing for a while definitely appealed to me.

Truthfully, these days, when I start feeling very anxious, stressed, or depressed, the idea of not existing for a while still appeals to me. And I can’t help but think that this desire to disappear first began when people mocked and mistook me for having “female” body parts.

I have just a glimpse of how cruel Trump and his transphobic followers have been in their constant crusade to demonize and misgender trans people. I can’t imagine feeling the full force from a lifetime of this meanness — the years I endured it was enough for me.

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Laverne Cox New TV Series Clean Slate Challenges Red States & ‘Rehumanization’

*This was first published by Out.com

Laverne Cox believes the timing of her new Prime Video series Clean Slate is “divine.”

In this lighthearted yet poignant show, the Emmy winner portrays Desiree, a trans woman who returns to her hometown of Mobile, Alabama, to reconnect with her estranged father, Harry, after 23 years of no contact. In addition to her starring role, Cox is credited as the series creator alongside George Wallace and Dan Ewen.

The series, executive produced by the late legendary television producer Norman Lear, faced numerous challenges before making it to the airwaves. Reflecting on her journey, Cox expressed her gratitude for the opportunity.

“I’m so humbled because we got no’s from every place. We pitched this everywhere. We sent the script out everywhere, and it was a ‘no’ from everywhere. And it was really Brent Miller and Norman Lear, and their tenacity and pushing, that got us asked to Amazon Prime.”

The development process for Clean Slate spanned seven years, during which Cox and her team encountered considerable resistance from Hollywood.

“I think getting a show on the air period is insanely difficult. There was a time when I was pitching this alongside two other projects with really established, Oscar-winning people, wonderful stories with trans characters, and none of them went through. They weren’t buying trans stories.”

Cox believes that the significance of this show is heightened in today’s political climate.

“And I think this show happening at this particular political moment feels, not like an accident. It feels divine because we are in a space culturally where trans people have been dehumanized to such an extent that taking away our rights and denying our legitimacy is something that people take for granted. And it’s happening on a federal level.”

She hopes that the series will encourage viewers to empathize with trans individuals.

“And so that is my hope that people will have empathy for the trans character that I play and hopefully be inspired to have empathy for trans people in real life and hopefully get to know us,” Cox says.

“We’re not a theory. We’re not an ideology. We’re human beings walking around, living with these experiences. We’re human, and the rehumanization process is what needs to happen. If we’re interested in love and justice for trans people, as well as for immigrants and for those who think differently from us, we need to counter a culture that dehumanizes. We need to engage in a process of humanizing each other across the board.”

The first season of Clean Slate will feature eight episodes and is now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

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Trump Bans Gender-Affirming Care for Minors 

*This was first published by The Hill

President Trump on Tuesday signed a sweeping executive order meant to broadly restrict access to gender-affirming care for transgender children and teenagers younger than 19, inching closer to fulfilling a key campaign promise to ban treatments that he and his administration have cast as experimental and dangerous, in conflict with major medical associations and transgender health experts. 

“Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” Tuesday’s order states. “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.” 

“Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” the order states. 

Every major medical organization supports gender-affirming care for transgender adults and minors, although not every trans person chooses to medically transition or has access to care. 

Trump’s executive order, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” tasks federal agencies with rescinding or amending policies that rely on guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), including the organization’s latest standards of care, released in 2022. 

WPATH, a nonprofit professional organization devoted to transgender health care, did not immediately return a request for comment. 

Trump’s order tasks the incoming Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) with publishing a review of existing literature on best practices “for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion.”  

Rapid-onset gender dysphoria, which claims that adolescents identify as transgender because of influence from friends or social media, is not recognized as a valid medical diagnosis by major professional medical organizations. In 2021, 61 professional health care organizations, including the American Psychological Association, signed a letter stating the condition lacks “rigorous empirical support for its existence.” 

According to Tuesday’s order, heads of executive departments and agencies that provide research and education grants to medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals, should take immediate steps to block funding for institutions that continue providing gender-affirming care to minors. 

Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale University specializing in adolescent medicine, said the provision amounts to “an immediate de facto ban on medical care” for trans youth who receive care at academic medical centers. 

“It basically defunds those medical centers if they continue to provide that care,” McNamara said of the order. 

“This is a stunning example of how all health care is tied together, and how the most effective way to attack gender-affirming care is to attack the entire health care apparatus as a whole,” she added in an interview. “They’re holding everyone hostage and saying, ‘We’re going to take away everyone’s healthcare unless you systematically deprive just these people.’” 

Trump’s executive order additionally directs the HHS Secretary — a position he wants for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — to bar access to gender-affirming care for transgender minors through federal programs like Medicaid and Medicare and withdraw the department’s 2022 guidance supporting gender-affirming care. The secretary should issue new guidance, in consultation with the incoming attorney general, “protecting whistleblowers who take action related to ensuring compliance with this order,” according to Tuesday’s order. 

The executive order also directs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to draft a rule to exclude coverage for gender-affirming care for minors from TRICARE, the military’s health program. Former President Biden in December signed a $895 billion defense policy bill barring TRICARE from covering transition-related care for transgender children of active-duty service members, a provision that military families with transgender kids called a “slap in the face.” 

Tuesday’s order similarly tasks the director of the Office of Personnel Management with taking steps to remove coverage for gender-affirming care for trans youth from federal health plans. 

It also asks the attorney general to prioritize enforcement of existing federal laws against female genital mutilation, which carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. The attorney general should also “prioritize investigations and take appropriate action to end deception of consumers, fraud, and violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act” by entities that may be “misleading the public” about the long-term side effects of transition-related care. 

Republican state attorneys general have, in recent years, used consumer protection laws to investigate individuals and organizations that provide gender-affirming care to minors. A Senate Finance Committee report released in April claimed that at least four GOP attorneys general — Ken Paxton of Texas, Todd Rokita of Indiana, Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee and Andrew Bailey of Missouri — abused their oversight authorities to “further ideological and political goals.” 

Trump’s executive order additionally directs the attorney general to work with Congress to “draft, propose, and promote legislation” to enact a private right of action for children, as well as their parents, “whose healthy body parts have been damaged” by medical professionals practicing transgender health care. 

The attorney general should also take “appropriate action,” the order states, “to end child-abusive practices by so-called sanctuary States,” including through the potential application of the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, a federal law preventing one parent from interfering with another parent’s custody rights. 

Conservative organizations celebrated Trump’s executive order Tuesday evening. In a joint statement, Independent Women’s Forum and Independent Women’s Voice said the move restores the “true meaning of ‘care’ for America’s youngest generation.” 

Kristina Rasmussen, executive director of Do No Harm, a health policy group that opposes gender-affirming care for minors, said Trump’s order prioritizes “safety, scientific integrity, and family autonomy.” 

Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and health care strategist at the LGBTQ civil rights organization Lambda Legal, called the order “morally reprehensible and patently unlawful” and said the group would sue. 

“The federal government — particularly, this administration — has no right to insert itself into conversations and decision-making that rightly belongs only to parents, their adolescent children, and their medical providers,” he said. 

The executive order comes after Trump signed separate orders declaring that the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and barring transgender people from serving openly in the military. 

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Trump two-gender edict would upend “X” identity on passports

This article first appeared on CNN.com

The federal government is set to only recognize two sexes, male and female, under an executive order that President Donald Trump is soon expected to sign.

The order would reverse efforts by the Biden administration to broaden gender identity designations, including on passports.

“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” Trump said during his inaugural address Monday, taking an early step to fulfill one of his culture war campaign promises.

The order, a Trump administration official told reporters Monday, is aimed at “defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truths to the federal government.” Male and female “are sexes that are not changeable, and they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the official said.

The federal government would also shift from using the term “gender” to “sex,” and that sex would be “an individual’s immutable biological classification,” the official said.

All government agencies would ensure that official documents, including passports and visas, “reflect sex accurately,” the official said. Also, departments running federal prisons, migrant shelters, rape shelters and other “intimate spaces” would be directed to protect single-sex spaces for privacy. And employee records would also adhere to the executive order, as would federal departments’ messaging.

“Agencies are no longer going to promote gender ideology through communication forms and other messages,” the official said, adding that grants and contracts would be reviewed to ensure that “federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology.”

Reversing Biden expansion

Trump’s executive order would dismantle efforts by the Biden administration to be more inclusive of Americans’ gender identification.

As of 2022, US citizens have been able to select “X” as their gender marker on passports. One’s marker does not need to match the gender on citizenship documents or photo ID, nor is medical documentation needed to change one’s gender, according to the State Department.

“We promote the freedom, dignity, and equality of all people – including LGBTQI+ individuals,” the department’s website says. “We are demonstrating this commitment to better serve all U.S. citizens, regardless of gender identity.”

Later that year, Americans were able to start changing their sex identification with the Social Security Administration without needing to provide medical certification. However, Social Security’s record systems still require a designation of male or female, though the administration said it was exploring policy and systems updates to support an “X” designation.

“The Social Security Administration’s Equity Action Plan includes a commitment to decrease administrative burdens and ensure people who identify as gender diverse or transgender have options in the Social Security number card application process,” said Kilolo Kijakazi, the administration’s acting commissioner at the time.

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Federal appeals court rules that there is no inherent right to alter one’s sex on a birth certificate.

This blog originally appeared at ABC NEWS.

A federal appeals court panel has ruled that Tennessee does not unconstitutionally discriminate against transgender people by not allowing them to change the sex designation on their birth certificates.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal appeals court panel ruled 2-1 on Friday that Tennessee does not unconstitutionally discriminate against transgender people by not allowing them to change the sex designation on their birth certificates.

“There is no fundamental right to a birth certificate recording gender identity instead of biological sex,” 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the majority in the decision upholding a 2023 district court ruling. The plaintiffs could not show that Tennessee’s policy was created out of animus against transgender people as it has been in place for more than half a century and “long predates medical diagnoses of gender dysphoria,” Sutton wrote.

He noted that “States’ practices are all over the map.” Some allow changes to the birth certificate with medical evidence of surgery. Others require lesser medical evidence. Only 11 states currently allow a change to a birth certificate based solely on a person’s declaration of their gender identity, which is what the plaintiffs are seeking in Tennessee.

Tennessee birth certificates reflect the sex assigned at birth, and that information is used for statistical and epidemiological activities that inform the provision of health services throughout the country, Sutton wrote. “How, it’s worth asking, could a government keep uniform records of any sort if the disparate views of its citizens about shifting norms in society controlled the government’s choices of language and of what information to collect?”

The plaintiffs — four transgender women born in Tennessee — argued in court filings that sex is properly determined not by external genitalia but by gender identity, which they define in their brief as “a person’s core internal sense of their own gender.” The lawsuit, first filed in federal court in Nashville in 2019, claims Tennessee’s prohibition serves no legitimate government interest while it subjects transgender people to discrimination, harassment and even violence when they have to produce a birth certificate for identification that clashes with their gender identity.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Helene White agreed with the plaintiffs, represented by Lambda Legal.

“Forcing a transgender individual to use a birth certificate indicating sex assigned at birth causes others to question whether the individual is indeed the person stated on the birth certificate,” she wrote. “This inconsistency also invites harm and discrimination.”

Lambda Legal did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment on Friday.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement that the question of changing the sex designation on a birth certificate should be left to the states.

“While other states have taken different approaches, for decades Tennessee has consistently recognized that a birth certificate records a biological fact of a child being male or female and has never addressed gender identity,” he said.

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