What to know about President Donald Trump's order targeting the rights of transgender people
Share:
An executive order President Donald Trump signed on his first day back in office offers a new federal government definition of the sexes that could have a major impact on transgender people nationwide. The order calls for the federal government to define sex as only male or female and for that to be reflected on official documents such as passports and policies such as federal prison assignments. As for federal spending, it's not clear what his vow to end broader gender classifications will mean on the ground.
Many of the provisions are likely to be challenged in court. Here's a look at the order. Defining male and female based on cells that don't exist at conception. The order declares that there are just two sexes, male and female. It rejects that people can transition from one gender to another or be considered something other than male or female such as nonbinary, which describes people who don’t identify as strictly men or women, or intersex.
The position reflects what many social conservatives have called for — and conflicts with what the American Medical Association and other mainstream medical groups say: that extensive scientific research suggests sex and gender are better understood as a spectrum than as an either-or definition.
Trump’s order says it is intended to protect women’s spaces from those who “self-identify” as women. It defines the sexes in an unconventional way, based on the reproductive cells — large cells in females or small ones in males. And it suggests that humans have those cells at conception.
