Through a series of executive orders signed in his first two weeks in office, President Trump is moving to eliminate the concept of “gender identity” — that a person can identify as something other than their biological sex — from the federal government, the military, public schools, and other federally funded institutions.
Transgender rights activists are vowing to fight this and have already filed lawsuits to preserve transgender protections for military service members and prisoners. Yet Mr. Trump’s orders should come as no surprise. Candidate Trump vowed on the campaign trail to end “leftwing gender insanity” and the “mutilation” of children through prescribing of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender surgeries.
Roughly a third of the Trump campaign ad buys in the final months were for transgender-related television spots, including the much-talked-about ad with the tagline, “Kamala Harris is for they/them. Trump is for you.” A senior legal adviser for Independent Women’s Law Center, Beth Parlato, tells the New York Sun: “This was not a sleeper issue. This, I believe, was at the forefront of the election.”
Mr. Trump’s Day One executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and restoring Truth to the Federal Government,” set the foundation for the orders that followed. It defines sex based on biology and says that the federal government will recognize only two genders, male and female.
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