Originally, the title for this article included a tongue-in-cheek, “Let’s Get Political (Yikes! and/or Sorry!)” But no. I didn’t cross a line into politics. Politics crossed a line into me.
This article will focus on two particular executive orders courtesy of President Donald Trump, taking a closer look at specific word choice to hopefully better understand how the administration seeks to unravel the rights and acceptance of trans Americans, the practical effects it sets in motion, and where the logical conclusion of its ideology might lead. The orders in question are titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government” and “Protecting Children From Chemical And Surgical Mutilation” respectively. Both can be easily found and read in their entirety under the Executive Actions section of whitehouse.gov
—while I put forward my own interpretation of them, I encourage you to take a look at them yourself and draw your own conclusions.
The main goal of “Biological Truth”, as I’ll be referring to what is otherwise quite the mouthful, is to define the terms male and female in static means, allowing no room for any concept of gender. Unfortunately, “Biological Truth” ultimately has very little to do with biological truth.
Let us consider the definitions put forth in Section 2:
(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.
Mention of reproductive cells (gametes) is at least slightly biologically informed, since it’s true that those are generally used to scientifically determine the sex of all organisms that have one (hermaphrodites being either one after the other or both at once). But biology disappears and the political intrudes with the simple utterance of “at conception”.
As I see it, there are two ways to interpret these definitions, neither of which are super helpful:
Sex is defined by the gametes one produces.
This is the more straightforward interpretation, but also the one that completely makes no sense when any amount of scrutiny is applied. At conception, as a single cell, none of us are anywhere near having the capability to produce any type of gamete at all. If sex is enshrined immutably at conception and is no more than the gametes we produce, then by definition, none of us have a sex.
Gamete production is used here simply as a way to distinguish between the sexes.
This is the slightly less intuitive way of looking at it, and it implies that there are other factors that set male and female apart (which, presumably, are present from the very moment of conception). But then, that begs the question… what factors? If the order seeking to define sex doesn’t define sex, then how can you attribute any ounce of validity to it? Besides, if you start looking at gonads or genetics (the latter being the only thing that really would be there at conception) as defining characteristics, you open up the floodgates of variation that this administration is clearly seeking to avoid acknowledging.
This use of “at conception” is especially of importance given its familiarity to pro-life/anti-abortion discourse. The concept of human life beginning at conception has gained traction in mainstream US conservatism, but this takes it a step further—something fundamental about who you are as a person is also defined at this very same moment. Traditionally, birth has been viewed as the ground zero for a human’s life (note how we start counting our ages from our birthdays, how the foundational document of personhood is one’s birth certificate, how sex is assigned (or perhaps “inferred” is a better word) at birth), but if we shift that weight onto conception instead, I can’t help but wonder what the repercussions are. What exactly are you at conception? Nothing but a single cell containing your genome. If that state is where more emphasis on who you are becomes placed, I worry that the most radical outcome is a philosophy of genetic determinism, which at its core is antithetical to the supposed American ideal that anyone can achieve success through hard work and directly sets us on a path towards eugenics.
As a side note, I want to address a reading of this order’s definitions I’ve seen floating around online. I appreciate the eagerness to call this order bogus, but the assertion that “Biological Truth” officially declares everyone in the US as female because “all embryos begin by developing female sex organs”, as I saw one re-posted Twitter screenshot to claim, is perhaps just as scientifically misguided.
Firstly, as I have highlighted incessantly, the simple phrase “at conception” immediately tells us that anything that happens during embryonic or fetal development doesn’t matter at all for the sake of the order’s definitions. Nevertheless, at the risk of sounding condescending (not my intention!), this is a fun opportunity for a quick biology lesson.
As a wee li’l embryo, we develop undifferentiated (“bipotential”, since they have the potential to become two different kinds of tissue!) gonads, and two important duct systems called the Müllerian and Wolffian ducts, respectively. These gonads will eventually develop into either ovaries or testes (or in very, very rare cases, one or both will become ovotestes, containing both ovarian and testicular tissue), and the Müllerian duct will develop into the rest of the ovarian system or the Wolffian duct will develop into the rest of the testicular system while the other duct degenerates. My main point here is that early on in our development, all of us contain both testicular and ovarian precursors!
I’m not entirely sure where the concept that female reproductive organs develop first and then are “replaced” in males comes from—my best guess would be a misunderstanding of what is meant when female-typical development is referred to as the “default” pathway. The Müllerian ducts are eliminated by the secretion of anti-Müllerian hormone (go figure) from the developing testes, and much later, the secretion of testosterone prompts the development of the Wolffian ducts into epididymides, vasa deferentia, and seminal vesicles, all of which is prompted by SRY, one tiny little gene that’s (usually!) on the Y chromosome. Without this little intervention, the Wolffian ducts are programmed to naturally self-destruct, and the Müllerian ducts will develop instead. But that’s not to say that female-typical development isn’t an active process—there are a number of genes required for it to go accordingly, including WNT4, which actively represses male-typical development, and which itself is repressed by SOX9 in embryos with the SRY gene present. We all have practically all the genes for both main pathways of sexual development spread across our genome, it’s all just about whether SRY is there to knock over the other set of dominoes! (And of course, there can be all other sorts of results when certain dominoes don’t fall over.)
Now that our little biology detour is over, we can get back to business. What exactly is the purpose of “Biological Truth”? Luckily for us, Section 1 is titled “Purpose” and gives us exactly that! …To an extent.
From the very first sentence Section 1 makes it clear that trans women are the target, decrying the ability of “men [who] self-identify as women” to access women’s spaces; the presence of “men” in these spaces is inherently threatening.
Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system.
Within the main body of the order, the word transgender is never evoked (save when mentioning titles of documents to rescind)—combined with Section 2’s definitions that cut gender out of the picture, a clear goal here is to wipe transgender people out of official (recognized) existence. Notably, references to the “T” in LGBT(QI+, as the Biden administration had it) are already being scrubbed from government websites. But as seen in the quote above, this erasure is transformed in conservative rhetoric from the trampling of one group’s rights to the safeguarding of another’s—it’s not about attacking queer people, it’s about protecting women. (Subtly implying, of course, that women are in desperate need of protection from the much superior category of men.) In case anyone was concerned about this order having a negative impact on the personal liberties of anybody, don’t worry, Section 5 (titled “Protecting Rights”) works to “ensure the freedom to express the binary nature of sex”! Look, they say freedom right there! You’re free to express sex (so long as it falls within the conception we’ve outlined)!
I do also find a little humor in the claim that gender ideology has a “corrosive impact… on the validity of the entire American system”. What exactly is the American system built upon then, hm? Is there something else you’re hinting at there? Do you mean to say that clear divisions between men and women are necessary for the functioning of American society?
In addition to an appeal to women’s protection, a separate appeal is made to scientific fact:
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts.
Yet to me, this passage seems to be going against the very spirit of science as a whole. It’s precisely about challenging current conceptions of how the world works. “Biological Truth” argues that we’ve already figured out what sex is, so we should stop trying to undermine that definition. Forget that all scientists are forced at some point to re-evaluate current models and come up with alternate explanations for the phenomena we observe in light of new evidence. Here, a notion of stability is preserved over any grasp towards a real biological truth.
As I navigated to the Executive Actions section of whitehouse.gov one final time before steeling myself to write this article, I was met with a little surprise: a new executive order that had just popped up, related to the very topic I was about to write about! From the title alone, I felt an immense pit in my stomach. Never before has reading something made me feel so sick. It was the moment the reality of the new administration really hit me, so to speak.
From the outset, “mutilation” is a strong word to be using. Naturally, it confers a visceral response in the reader while also attaching a moral significance to whatever it is describing. And surprise, surprise, I think it is willfully misused. Section 2c coming at you:
The phrase “chemical and surgical mutilation” means the use of puberty blockers, including GnRH agonists and other interventions, to delay the onset or progression of normally timed puberty in an individual who does not identify as his or her sex; the use of sex hormones, such as androgen blockers, estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone, to align an individual’s physical appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex; and surgical procedures that attempt to transform an individual’s physical appearance to align with an identity that differs from his or her sex or that attempt to alter or remove an individual’s sexual organs to minimize or destroy their natural biological functions. This phrase sometimes is referred to as “gender affirming care.”
This is a pretty long quote, but I pull it out because I think there’s a lot worth unpacking here. Puberty blockers, sex hormones, and surgeries are the three things identified as mutilation here. Puberty blockers is a particularly mind-boggling thing to attach that label to, as the entire point of them is that they prevent changes from happening. The safety of their use is not in question—you’ll notice that using them to prevent precocious puberty or, implicitly, for any reason in cisgender people is deemed perfectly fine (i.e. not “mutilation”). The defining characteristic of so-called mutilation is that it makes a person look different than they “should” (according to the flawed definition of sex laid out in “Biological Truth”). The problem with hormones and cosmetic surgeries is explicitly that they “attempt to transform an individual’s physical appearance to align with an identity that differs from his or her sex”. Any way you slice it, this is an order about regulating our appearances.
In contrast, genital surgery is treated through a different lens, framed as something that “minimize[s] or destroy[s] [sex organs’] natural biological functions”. Through this phrasing, it is implied that the purpose of these procedures is precisely to destroy biological function. Certainly, this is sounding more like surgical mutilation. Yet it is precipitated by a rhetorical transformation of this care into something it’s not. Careful attention to the start and end of this definition reveals the ultimate point that “the phrase ‘chemical and surgical mutilation’… sometimes is referred to as ‘gender affirming care’. From one term to the other is a complete pivot in how these treatments are envisioned and accordingly the moral responsibility tied to them, from care that affirms a person’s sense of self to mutilation that tears down how a human body should look and function.
Section 1, outlining the purpose of the order, touches on this issue of function further. Special emphasis is placed on infertility as a consequence for such “child mutilation”, and Sections 8a and 8b specifically prioritize the enforcement of laws against female genital mutilation (if the last order was transfems’ time in the sun, now it’s transmacs’ turn!). I can’t help but feel a connection here with a growing Republican concern about birth rate, which it would seem women bear the brunt of (after all, “childless cat ladies” are the problem, not childless men). I’m sensing some veiled race suicide fears here (the end of a race via its death rate superseding its birth rate, especially in light of high immigration from elsewhere—white demographic decline is a real thing in the US, and once you learn this, you suddenly understand why hostility towards immigrants from most of our North and South American neighbors has become such a political flashpoint), and well would you look at that, we’re back to eugenics again!
I’d like to note that Section 1 also laments how “mutilation” victims will go on to spend the rest of their lives in a “losing war with their own bodies”. This feels like a spit in the face, given that the exact way many trans people would describe their own experiences living without access to gender-affirming care (especially children going through puberty) would be a “losing war with their own bodies”. This sentiment, one that clearly is worth sympathy given its usage here, is flipped around and weaponized against us.
While “Biological Truth” used the veil of protecting women’s rights to strip away trans people’s, “Chemical And Surgical Mutilation” uses the veil of protecting children’s wellbeing to set in place regulations of how men and women are supposed to look, how their bodies are supposed to be configured. “Biological Truth” defines a sex binary, and “Chemical And Surgical Mutilation” acts as the first step in enforcing it. We must ask ourselves what other traits are included within this binary, as they are the next targets. Further restrictions on our appearances or the spaces we inhabit? The ways we act, the opportunities available to us? Who we love? (Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have previously advocated overturning gay marriage, and the Idaho House of Representatives has just recently passed a resolution urging the Supreme Court to reconsider the case. If Obergefell v. Hodges falls, laws and state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage across 35 states will immediately go back into effect.)
As executive orders, “Biological Truth” and “Chemical And Surgical Mutilation” luckily do not carry legislative authority (though Section 6 and Section 8d of each look to create laws with that authority)—they simply articulate policy (and are enforceable within) the federal executive branch. We can see this in Section 3d of “Biological Truth”, which requires that personnel records and federal identification documents, such as passports, reflect the holder’s sex as defined under Section 2—there’s no mention of driver’s licenses or similar state-issued IDs, as they fall outside of federal purview.
That’s not to say that these orders have no impact outside of government, however. Quite the opposite! The main cudgel used to force compliance from non-governmental institutions is all about federal funding, something the executive branch does exhibit notable control over via the Office of Management and Budget (though constitutionally, “the power of the purse” is supposed to lie within the legislative branch). Under these orders’ guidelines, federal grants, which help fund everything from universities to hospitals to state governments, will be withheld from institutions that “promote gender ideology” or practice “the chemical and surgical mutilation of children”. Refuse to comply, and funding that you may very well rely on to stay operational will be cut off. Technically, you don’t have to comply… but it’s not a great choice to make! We have already seen hospitals across the country suspending their youth gender-affirming care programs in response, and Trump’s January 29th executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” has taken another swing at education in particular. I won’t delve too far into that rabbit hole, but its concern over “anti-American ideologies” being taught in school should raise alarm bells, as it is quite literally trying to regulate what sort of thought can be taught. Included on the no-no list is gender ideology and “discriminatory equity ideology”, a jab at critical race theory. Also of note is a target placed on social transition for minors, which even completely detached from medical intervention or any notion of irreversibility, is not to be aided in any way by school officials.
The policies of other executive departments are not to be brushed off either. Section 5 of “Chemical And Surgical Mutilation” lays out some specific duties for the Department of Health and Human Services relating to Medicare and Medicaid, drug use reviews, and safety oversight that will undoubtedly seek to limit accessibility of gender-affirming care, likely for adults as well as minors. Notably, a child is already defined in Section 2 as anyone under 19 years old, so legal adults are already targeted to an extent (seemingly for no reason other than that they could get away with it without much extra fuss?).
(To clarify my own position, it is of course of the utmost importance that the treatments we use for trans individuals, and especially minors, are safe and effective. Under standard and proper procedure, recipients of any of this care are made aware of all of its potential effects via an informed consent procedure and are cautioned not to make any irreversible decisions lightly—for children, no medication is typically prescribed before the onset of puberty, and surgery is almost unheard of. Plus, parental consent is a requirement for nearly any type of care in minors, with gender-affirming care being no different. The frustrating thing about all this discourse surrounding safety is that it’s usually not actually about safety at all. These treatments are not new or experimental; they have been used for decades, and their safety to treat certain medical conditions in cis people is never questioned. Deeming hormone therapy as unsafe is purely a method to make it less accessible for trans people who need or desire it.)
I would also like to draw attention to the Justice Department, which comes to the forefront in Section 8 of “Chemical And Surgical Mutilation”. I’ve already mentioned female genital mutilation law enforcement, but there are some important other points to pick out here. Let’s go in order:
(c) prioritize investigations and take appropriate action to end deception of consumers, fraud, and violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by any entity that may be misleading the public about long-term side effects of chemical and surgical mutilation;
“Any entity that may be misleading the public about long-term side effects of chemical and surgical mutilation” taken at face value isn’t so bad, but given what we’ve already discussed about this administration, I predict it will come to mean anybody who portrays gender-affirming care in a positive light at all. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act refers to the US Food and Drug Administration’s ability to regulate, as you’d expect from the title, food and drugs. So, in a worst case scenario, this clause is telling us that anybody who portrays gender-affirming care in a way that isn’t congruous with the executive branch’s portrayal (or who uses or transports puberty blockers or hormones in the case that the FDA deems them unsafe) is under threat of investigation. These investigations wouldn’t necessarily lead anywhere unless the judicial branch played along though—the former offense, an issue of speech, is one that I doubt our legal system would attribute much validity to. The latter, on the other hand, is an issue of ignoring the authority of a governmental agency, a case with much more merit (though of course, precipitated by the FDA attempting to ban or otherwise tighten control of gender-affirming care-related drugs, something that has yet to happen).
(d) in consultation with the Congress, work to draft, propose, and promote legislation to enact a private right of action for children and the parents of children whose healthy body parts have been damaged by medical professionals practicing chemical and surgical mutilation, which should include a lengthy statute of limitations;
Legal threats like this, especially with a “lengthy statute of limitations” are the exact thing that has driven abortion providers out of business in an ever-increasing number of states. It’s an effective way to make providers consider gender-affirming care for minors too risky career-wise to perform, but also easily leaks out into the sphere of adults. Investigate enough doctors providing pediatric gender-affirming care, and the stress will push many of them out of the area of trans-related care in its entirety. A de facto rather than de jure end to care.
(e) prioritize investigations and take appropriate action to end child-abusive practices by so-called sanctuary States that facilitate stripping custody from parents who support the healthy development of their own children, including by considering the application of the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act and recognized constitutional rights.
As somebody who fortunately lives in a so-called sanctuary state, the way conservatives have attacked trans refuge policies has really irked me. The entire point of these policies is to safeguard the right to access gender-affirming care within the state and refuse to acknowledge or assist with legal challenges targeting such care from other states. Anybody who travels to a refuge state to receive care is safeguarded to the best of the state’s abilities from prosecution from whatever state the individual travelled from or is a permanent resident of. The custody issues that Republicans hone in on are, in reality, a refusal to recognize any other state’s judgement terminating parental rights solely on the basis of that parent’s intention or success in obtaining gender-affirming care for their child. Refuge states do not strip custody, they prevent custody from being stripped. Allegations of “child kidnapping” in refuge states are sensationalist fabrications, not unlike this entire “mutilation” framing. I hold hope that any legal investigation into sanctuary states will go absolutely nowhere, but that will not stop us from having to endure the pain of the process.
In a broader sense, the rescinding of guidance documentation affects all executive agencies—Section 7c of “Biological Truth” lists a bunch that mostly directly address trans rights (including Biden administration interpretation of Title IX to to cover gender identity), but there are also a few pettier picks. The Education Department’s “Education in a Pandemic: The Disparate Impacts of COVID-19 on America’s Students” and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace” seem to be withdrawn solely for mentioning the existence of trans individuals. Back to Section 5 of “Chemical And Surgical Mutilation”, the “HHS Notice and Guidance on Gender Affirming Care, Civil Rights and Patient Privacy” is rescinded, and it’s subtly implied in avii that gender dysphoria should be considered a mental disorder. Every department is to be coordinated in a refusal to acknowledge trans people’s existence.
Meanwhile, Section 3 of “Chemical And Surgical Mutilation”, titled “Ending Reliance on Junk Science”, goes on to call for an end of all reliance on WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) guidance, as it “lacks scientific integrity”. Funny how “Biological Truth” was so concerned about immutable scientific reality, but here scientific consensus is explicitly thrown out the window. Cherry picking what science we care about, aren’t we?
In reality, many of the possible effects of these orders are speculative—as per their nature, it takes a little time before they kick in in full force. I warn of a possibility of a weaponization of the legal system, though courts (below the Supreme one, at least) have usually served as a stabilizing force and I doubt will tolerate anything too egregious. Perhaps the scarier consequences are the social ones—if all public institutions are intimidated into following suit in the executive branch’s refusal to recognize trans existence, then we enter into an atmosphere of less understanding where fear-mongering more easily bears fruit. In this sense, it is of the utmost importance that we continue to refute and refuse to cave into the ideology the White House is espousing.
It’s a pretty dark time, I won’t lie. We’re at the precipice of a four-year tenure that has kicked off so immediately with this categorical denial of trans peoples’ right to happiness and to simply exist. An anti-trans agenda has become central to the Republican party, which now has assumed control of every single branch of government. On both the federal and state levels, we cannot yet assume how long this situation may last. A lot of damage may be done now that will take a long time to undo.
The pragmatist’s advice would be to make sure your voice doesn’t go unheard, to fight tooth and nail against institutions and representatives that go along with anti-trans rhetoric (alongside anti-immigrant rhetoric, anti-democratic rhetoric, all the other ailments plaguing our current political situation, etc. etc.) as the only method to achieve positive change. A hearty, “Go get ‘em!” Yet I understand that this approach relies on a certain security and agency that not everybody has. It’s up to us, as community members, to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, before we’re next—and even regardless of if we’re next. Because that’s what neighbors do.
My greatest advice at this time is in truth quite simple—don’t lose hope. We are caught in a vortex of hate in which, for many of us, catastrophizing becomes the path of least resistance. “It’s so over.” Yet nothing, in fact, is over yet. The earth still turns, we are still here. And no matter how hard the federal government may try to get rid of trans people, we will always still be here. The simplest act of resistance is continuing to exist, and with a little elbow grease, we will eventually reach the light at the end of the tunnel. Please, hang in there.
Taking care,
Thunnus albacares