Trump Says US Will Honor ‘Only Two Genders’ After Anti-Trans Campaign Rhetoric

An executive order that President Trump plans to sign Monday could overturn federal protections for transgender people and youth, a move that is likely to spur local and state efforts to step up safeguards.

“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 inauguration speech on Monday.

The expected Day One action follows repeated pledges by Trump on the campaign trail to abolish many of the government’s gender-affirming policies for transgender and nonbinary people upon entering office. Other conservative politicians have also vocalized their support for curbing policies that protect transgender athletes and youth seeking gender-affirming care.

The news did not come as a surprise. A major part of the president’s campaign was using fear-mongering tactics to incite aggressions against transgender people and gender-adaptive policies, said Honey Mahogany, director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives.

Now, the executive order will pose a real threat to the physical and mental well-being of transgender and gender-nonconforming people in the United States, they said.

The full text of the order has not been released, but an incoming White House official told reporters it will require all federal government-issued identifications, including passports, to reflect a person’s biological sex rather than their gender identity. Mandates requiring workplaces and federal agencies to honor a person’s preferred pronouns would also be overturned.

The federal government may also prohibit taxpayer funds from being used to subsidize gender-affirming health care, and could force facilities that receive federal funding such as public schools and prisons to separate people on the basis of biological sex in intimate spaces.

“These are sexes that are not changeable, and they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the White House official said to reporters on Monday.

The basis of Trump’s order is unfounded, Mahogany argued. Defining sex as a biological binary of only male and female excludes not only transgender but also intersex people.

“Gender has been something that has been defined differently between cultures throughout human history,” Mahogany said. “It’s really important to acknowledge that the Trump administration can say whatever it wants. It doesn’t necessarily change the realities that we are living every day.”

Mahogany said they’re concerned about what could happen to transgender people who are barred from accessing gender-affirming care, and said it’s likely that rates of depression and suicidal ideation may go up. They also said that disregarding a person’s gender identity could leave transgender individuals vulnerable to sexual and physical violence.

According to Mahogany, Trump’s executive order and the conservative rhetoric around sex and gender may also hurt people who are not transgender. Admonishments against the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, for example, have resulted in verbal and physical assaults on cisgender athletes who do not conform to gender expectations.

“When they say things like we’re doing this to protect women or biological women, what we’re seeing is that the opposite is happening and that women are being negatively impacted by these policies,” Mahogany said.

Moving forward, community organizations and leaders will have to work with the state and with local municipalities to secure protections for transgender people that may not be reflected at the federal level, Mahogany said.