The Trump administration is considering wiping out recognition and protections of transgender people under federal law. This would be a sickening move that puts the safety and well-being of more than a million Americans—including children—at risk.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which has already shown itself willing to stop collecting critical data related to sexual orientation and gender identity, is leading the effort “to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance,” according to a memo obtained by the New York Times. Here’s the awful heart of their story (my bold):
The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable….”
“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
The new definition would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.
Transgender students would bear the brunt of this, the NY Times rightly notes, saying, “The narrower definition would be acutely felt in schools and their most visible battlegrounds: locker rooms and bathrooms…. A restrictive governmentwide definition would cement the Education Department’s current approach. But it would also raise new questions. The department would have to decide what documentation schools would be required to collect to determine or codify gender.”
This is an unconscionable attempt to erase the identities of transgender people. It’s also ridiculously unscientific. The lines of anatomy and chromosomes do not always fall into the neat categories we humans want to create, as intersex people clearly demonstrate. (For an excellent explanation of this, watch the terrific documentary Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric
I am a cisgender woman, but I have the good fortune to be friends with several transgender women and men as well as parents of trans kids. The one thing I have learned from them is that trans people’s gender identities are as firmly rooted as mine, no matter what we have under our respective clothing. Defining gender as binary and set at birth is to ignore both scientific studies and the lived experiences of generations of transgender people.
I want to end this post with a quote from Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, who said in response to the memo:
With each awful headline like this, remember that you are far from alone. NCTE and other organizations are continuing to fight against this bigotry. Remember that there is an entire human rights community that not only stands with us but will always fight back—and fight hard…. This is the most common trait shared by transgender people: A strength and resilience for hard and difficult times. If this administration is hoping to demoralize us, they will be disappointed. If they are hoping we will give up, they should reconsider the power of our persistence and our fury.
I encourage you to go read her full statement.
As a community of LGBTQ people and allies, we will fight the Trump administration in this move and every other move they make to ignore and dehumanize those it sees as less than worthy of equality and compassion. (Start by making sure you’re registered to vote and have a plan to get an absentee ballot or get to the polls on Election Day or earlier.) My thoughts are with my transgender friends tonight; may my actions be with them in the days ahead so they #WontBeErased.