This week, Trump signed three executive orders damaging transgender rights, such as one intended to limit access to gender-affirming care for minors. Federal agencies have been told to implement a transgender bathroom ban, barring trans people from single-sex spaces that correspond with their gender identity. The Trump administration ordered that the ban must be in place by Friday, also pushing agencies to fire anyone working on “gender ideology.”.

The directive is part of an effort to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order that states the government recognizes only two sexes. A memo was sent Wednesday by the Office of Personnel Management to department leaders, asking them to review and put an end to programs, grants, contracts, and media that “promote or inculcate gender ideology.”. The administration has defined gender ideology as “an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity.”.

The order also calls for the cancellation of training and employee resource groups that have previously “promoted gender ideology” as well as ensuring documents, policies and forms use the term “sex” instead of “gender.” Bathroom and other “intimate spaces” must be “designated by biological sex and not gender identity,” the memo states. Agency leaders must report on their implementation by February 7. The memo also reveals the administration’s next steps in enforcing the January 20 executive order from Trump, stating that the federal government will only recognize two genders — male and female — which “are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”.

The order states that it will protect women and return “biological truth to the federal government.” It orders federal officials to “enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes.”. “Agencies shall take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology,” the order states.

The order comes as House Republicans are pushing for similar measures to be taken on Capitol Hill. They attempted to bar Democratic Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, from using the women’s restroom. In November, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana announced a new policy, which he renewed earlier in January, stopping transgender people from using the restrooms at the Congressional complex that correspond to their gender identity.

South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace introduced a measure late last year that was set to bar transgender people from using restrooms on federal land, such as museums and national parks. Just this week, Trump signed another three executive orders damaging transgender rights, such as one intended to limit access to gender-affirming care for minors. On Wednesday, Trump issued an order targeting public schools that teach critical race theory or “radical gender ideology,” seeking to defund them. Yet another order looks to bar trans people from openly serving in the armed forces.