After Trump’s Order on ‘Two Genders,’ Trans Rights Groups Turn to Taking Action

Trans-rights advocacy groups preparing to deal with the repercussions of an executive order signed this week by President Trump, which could jeopardize federal protections for members of the transgender community, say they will step up support efforts and are considering legal action.

After months of unrelenting anti-trans attacks from conservative leaders, the directive from Trump’s administration, which declares that the federal government recognizes only two sexes: male and female, did not come as a surprise to many local organizers and civil rights activists. Rolling back protections for gender-nonconforming people was always a central part of the president’s campaign.

Community groups dedicated to supporting transgender and nonbinary people have been readying themselves since Trump’s electoral victory in November, said Heron Greenesmith, deputy director of policy at the Transgender Law Center in Oakland. Community outreach services are already in place to educate people on their rights and to provide legal assistance to those who need it.

Greenesmith said that while Trump’s executive order evokes a lot of anxiety and uncertainty, they believe that now is not the time to give into fear or catastrophization but rather to take action.

“The purpose of this administration, the extremist right-wing administration, is to cause fear and confusion in our community,” Greenesmith said. “We expect that they’re going to enact cruel and harmful policies directed at our humanity.”

Greenesmith urged their fellow trans-rights advocates to focus their energy on supporting the most vulnerable within the transgender community rather than on the new administration’s directives.

The Transgender Law Center will continue providing legal assistance to transgender people who are incarcerated, and plans are in place to secure more resources for the nonprofit’s legal help desk and hotline, they said.

“While this is a new administration, this work is not new. This bullying is not new. The persecution is not new,” Greenesmith continued. “We will continue to care for each other.”

At the Pacific Center for Human Growth, an LGBTQ nonprofit in Berkeley, workers are partnering with the national organization Advocates for Transgender Equality to host a “Know Your Trans Rights” conference at the end of February, said Lasara Firefox Allen, executive director of the Pacific Center. They said organizers will use the next month to see what the actual effects of Trump’s order will be.

The center is also offering expanded mental health and peer support services to transgender people, from youth to adults, Allen said.

“There’s nothing the president can say that will make us give up who we are,” Allen said. “We’ve existed since before the government recognized us and will continue to do so. We don’t need the permission of the United States government in order to exist.”

Some organizations are already preparing to take legal action against Trump’s administration and the order. Lambda Legal, a civil rights group focused on the LGBTQ community, told KQED that it would be pursuing litigation alleging violations of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The ACLU also said in a statement that it is prepared to fight if federal agencies move to enforce the order.

The executive order, which Trump signed only a few hours into his term, declares that a person’s gender is determined by the reproductive cells they have upon conception, and that will dictate which federally funded facilities a person is permitted to use when the spaces are segregated by sex.

Trump’s order also takes aim at federal policies that allow transgender and nonbinary people to self-select their gender on official government forms, an option that Trump said promotes “gender ideology” and “eradicates the biological reality of sex,” according to the order.

For now, advocates and community members are waiting to see which of Trump’s orders are enacted and what the effects will be in the near future.

“We’re ready to take care of our community in all the ways that we know how,” Allen said. “We will keep us safe.”