Just hours after officially returning to the White House, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to declare that the U.S. recognizes two genders, male and female — a move that a White House official said is “step one” before issuing further restrictions on transgender people.
“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 in his inaugural speech. The order he later signed states that they “are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
Trump made anti-trans messaging key to his campaign and, after winning in November, has talked about ending “transgender lunacy” as being a priority for his administration. The president said that he planned on issuing orders to stop trans athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports and to stop federal agencies from promoting gender-affirming care.
The executive order, which was the last of many Trump signed on his first day, directs federal agencies to take into consideration that there are “only two sexes” when enforcing their statutes, regulations, guidance and other agency business. Federal employees are directed to use the term “sex” instead of “gender” in official communications.
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The departments of State and Homeland Security are ordered to ensure that government-issued documents, such as passports and visas, “reflect the holder’s sex,” the order states. Sex is now defined as a person’s “immutable biological classification as either male or female.” The order raises questions about whether federal documents issued to trans people with updated gender markers will be invalidated.
Ahead of the inauguration, a then-incoming White House official said in a press call on Monday morning that defining the language was first, and “then you can do step two: Then you can protect children, then you can enforce the restrictions on the First Amendment that allow individual freedom in order to speak the truth and speak your belief.”
Democrats immediately denounced the order.
“This is his vision for America on Day One? Further dividing us instead of making life economically better for us? My constituents desperately need housing, not stupid executive orders,” Rep. Becca Balint told NOTUS. “It’s disgraceful that this is his ‘vision’ for America on his first day in office.”
Sen. Tina Smith seemed perplexed as to how this could be enforced. “I do not even know what it means. What is he saying? I mean, as a legal matter, what is he even talking about?”
“The president is obsessed with restricting the rights of transgender individuals,” Rep. Gil Cisneros said. “Instead of attacking the LGBTQ community’s civil rights, he should focus on policies that will actually benefit the majority of the American people, like lowering housing costs or making groceries more affordable for working people.”
The president’s allies, on the other hand, welcomed it.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told NOTUS that “for President Trump to write an executive order that states that is extremely important.”
Rep. Greg Steube told NOTUS that Congress should pass a bill codifying the order into law “so a future president can’t remove it by executive order.”
He added that this order “for sure” highlights how his bill to ban trans athletes from participating in women’s sports, which the House just passed, is a GOP priority.
The order directs the Department of Housing and Urban Development to finish a rule that would allow homeless shelters to turn trans people away and also addresses “privacy and intimate spaces,” specifically to ban transgender women from being housed in prisons, migrant shelters and rape shelters of their preferred gender identity.
Trump also revoked several executive orders issued by Biden aimed at protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination, including one that allowed trans people to serve in the military. In doing so, he effectively reinstated the military trans ban he had adopted during his first administration.
Trans people were first allowed to serve in 2016, when the Obama administration adopted a policy allowing them to “serve openly” and declaring that trans service members cannot be “discharged or otherwise separated from the military solely for being transgender individuals.” Trump rescinded the policy in 2017.
The independent research organization Palm Center estimated in 2018 that there are over 14,000 currently serving trans troops. A 2020 study found that trans people “appear twice as likely” as the general population to serve in the military.
The ban comes at a time in which almost all armed forces branches have been struggling to meet their recruitment targets.
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Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.
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