President Donald Trump has taken numerous actions in a bid to roll back the rights of transgender and non-binary individuals during the early days of his second term. Many of the executive orders are facing legal challenges, and more developments are expected to follow as the president’s administration continues to take shape and cabinet officials carry out his agenda.
Gay City News has covered the developments as they have emerged from the White House. Below, find some of the key stories we’ve covered since Trump took office for his second term.
Trump issues executive order aiming to erase transgender students in schools
The latest executive order, entitled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” calls for the president’s cabinet to come up with a so-called “Ending Indoctrination Strategy” featuring a plan to eliminate “federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.” READ MORE
Trump signs executive order targeting youth gender-affirming care
On Jan. 28, President Trump signed an executive order aiming to restrict gender-affirming care for youth and some adults at the federal level. The order offensively entitled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” calls to ban federal funding for gender-affirming care for individuals under the age of 19 and directs the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary to “take all appropriate actions to end” gender-affirming care, “including regulatory and sub-regulatory actions.” READ MORE
Trump bans trans troops yet again, prompting lawsuits and outrage
President Trump on Jan. 27 banned transgender service members from the US military yet again, representing a repackaged — and broader — version of his first administration’s policy restricting trans troops from the US Armed Forces. Trump imposed his latest ban on trans troops through an executive order called “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which is laced with blatantly false information and biased right-wing talking points insisting that the Armed Forces “have been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists” and that the military would no longer respect transgender individuals’ gender identities in any way. READ MORE
State Department, Bureau of Prisons begin carrying out Trump’s transphobic agenda
The Trump administration banned gender-affirming care for incarcerated individuals in federal prisons and ordered those prisons to house individuals by their gender assigned at birth, effectively barring transgender and non-binary individuals from being housed in accordance with their gender identity. The policy extends to individuals in immigration detention. Meanwhile the State Department has frozen passport applications with “X” gender markers and paused applications “where the applicant is seeking to change their sex marker.” READ MORE
Trump’s day one executive orders trash LGBTQ rights
This story summarizes relevant executive orders signed by Trump within hours of taking office, including rescinding former President Joe Biden’s executive orders protecting LGBTQ rights. Trump issued executive orders targeting transgender rights, such as a wide-ranging one called “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which seeks to eraser trans people from any recognition, notice, or rights under federal law. READ MORE
