Bodily autonomy is a phrase that is often used by the Pro-Choice movement. The basic premise is that a woman should have a choice over their own body, even to the point where she is allowed to abort her child that she is pregnant with. Obviously, Pro-Life people like me disagree with this. However, rarely do people actually discuss the value of bodily autonomy and what it means.
To the Pro-Life Movement, Bodily Autonomy is just a red flag warning them with the message, “Oh, it’s one of those people who are trying to use the number one argument for why abortion should be legal and/or moral.”
To the Pro-Choice movement, Bodily Autonomy is a talking point that sidesteps the question of whether abortion is murder, whether the embryo, fetus, or “contents of pregnancy” is valuable, or whether it is a human being deserving legal protection.
However, I believe that a proper understanding of bodily autonomy requires it to be studied in a context outside of abortion. For this, we have two main issues that we can use for comparison.
- LGBTQIA Rights
In the context of LGBTQIA, rights could include but are not limited to, a person choosing which sexual partner they have and being free from rape, which is the most obvious violation of a person’s body. It could also include a transgender person having the right to modify their body via hormones, surgery, or simply wearing different clothes that help them feel more aligned with what their brain tells them their body should look and feel like. Last but not least, it could include the right of intersex people not to have surgery done on them as a baby that doctors or parents believe will “correct” what they assume is a birth defect. In simple terms, if a baby is born with both a penis and a vagina, don’t attempt to remove either and let them decide when they are older which parts to keep or remove. Babies cannot consent to surgery because they can’t even talk yet. The tradition of infant male circumcision is also relevant here in the context of Bodily Autonomy but is not specific to just trans or intersex people.
- Vaccine Choice
Some people have imposed Vaccine Mandates that require people to either take a certain vaccine or be fired from their jobs, removed from their housing, or not allowed to attend school or events without proof of vaccination. Therefore, a discussion of Bodily Autonomy must include the right to choose what vaccines you take in your body or not.
Examples:
Since Donald Trump was inaugurated as President on January 20, 2025, he has signed many executive orders. There are some that I agree with. For example, on January 27, 2025, he signed an executive order which reinstates everyone who was discharged from the military for refusing the Covid-19 vaccines. I consider this a good move because I don’t want anybody to lose their job just because they choose what they will and will not put into their body. I fully believe in Bodily Autonomy when it comes to a person deciding what to eat, what vaccines to take or not take, and what they wear, Et cetera. Therefore, I believe that Donald Trump has the right position when it comes to respecting this type of Bodily Autonomy.
Also, it may be relevant to note that Trump also freed 23 prisoners who were arrested for non-violent protests outside abortion clinics. This action is just one more example of something I think Trump did right. He seems to show by his actions that he cares about Freedom of Speech as well as the Bodily Autonomy of the babies not to be murdered.
However, there are other actions by Donald Trump that I believe violate the Bodily Autonomy of Transgender and Intersex people.
For example, in one of his executive orders, Trump has declared that the Federal Government of the United States of America will only recognize two genders, male and female. To the uninformed, this sounds harmless because most people think there are only two genders. But is it true? The answer is more complicated than you think.
There have been many attempts to define what males and females are. This task gets harder to do the more you learn. The simple fact is that intersex people exist who have more than the standard chromosome variations of XX or XY. There are people with XXY, XXYY, and XYY, and some only have a single X chromosome. Defining sex/gender on chromosomes is not reliable and can actually be expensive. I am 37 years old, and I don’t know my chromosome variation, but I suspect XXY, also known as Klinefelter syndrome.
The other way people usually define male or female is by looking at someone’s genitals and then labeling them as male if they have a penis and female if they have a vagina. Usually this is done to newborn babies who are assigned male or female at birth. However, this is also not reliable. Some people are born with more than one set of genitals. But the larger point is that we should let people’s “private parts” remain private.
My primary concerns are the following specific parts of the order titled “DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT”.
“(d) The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, shall implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex, as defined under section 2 of this order; and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall ensure that applicable personnel records accurately report Federal employees’ sex, as defined by section 2 of this order.”
What does this mean for people in reality? Are you going to pull down everyone’s pants and inspect their genitals every time they renew their state ID or passport? Will you be taking blood samples to test their chromosomes? If so, who pays for this? The individual or the taxpayers in general? What about those who are intersex and have mixed genitalia or chromosomes? These statements raise more questions than they answer. Doing these actions to enforce laws based on this executive order will violate the privacy and Bodily Autonomy of people who just want their identification for travel, applying for a job, or even filing their taxes. They should not be required to let someone pull their pants down, let someone touch their genitals, or be forced to give their blood every time they want a passport or just need to pee in a restroom.
“e) Agencies shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other messages. Agency forms that require an individual’s sex shall list male or female and shall not request gender identity. Agencies shall take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology.”
What is gender ideology? I have never heard this term coming from anyone other than those who have not taken the time to educate themselves on transgender and intersex people. What do you mean by ending the federal funding of gender ideology? I don’t agree that there is such a thing as gender ideology, but it sounds like more money will be spent on trying to slap a label on people of either male or female, regardless of the fact that some of us are a combination of both.
Transgender and Intersex people have always existed and will continue to exist, regardless of what any government says or whatever our identification documents say. However, there will be people who have their privacy invaded, and some of them will lose their jobs and ability to travel, and some may die as a result of these policies. Some people have made a great effort to pass as their preferred gender and even have had their identification documents updated with their preferred gender and name already. Additionally, many of them have spent thousands of dollars on hormones and surgery to change their bodies so that they can pass as their felt gender. These people mean no harm to the public, but many people will commit violence against them or fire them from their jobs as soon as they are forced to be revealed as transgender or intersex by laws and policies related to this order.
Some intersex people do not by any measure meet the requirements to be identified as male or female. These people have already obtained an X gender marker on their documents. Whatever you do, please don’t force them to endure genital inspections and chromosome tests everywhere they go. That’s not good government policy. That is just sexual harassment. Clearly, this is also a violation of their Bodily Autonomy.
The second executive order, which I will mention briefly, is the one titled “PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM CHEMICAL AND SURGICAL MUTILATION”. I don’t want to spend too much time on this because that is a post for another day. However, I oppose this because it is already written to ban gender-affirming care for individuals 19 and younger. I can only speculate how long it will be before the next executive order banning hormones and surgery for people of all ages.
I, as an individual, fully support the right of adults to decide what to do with their bodies related to gender-affirming care. Furthermore, I do believe that people under the age of 18 should also have these options in specific cases and that these decisions should be made along with their parents and doctors for practical, legal, and medical reasons. I will expand on this in a future post. For now, know that the executive order is linked in the sources section at the end of this post. But for now, my position is that this is one of those things where transgender people should have a right to decide what they do with their bodies related to gender-affirming care.
Final Notes
I wrote this post because I feel a responsibility to protect the rights of my fellow LGBTQIA people. I am transgender, and I believe these recent executive orders could cause harm to me or other people very much like me. At the same time, I also voted for Donald Trump because I believed he would protect the Bodily Autonomy of those who want to make their own choices regarding vaccines. I am also pleased with his pardon of the 23 prisoners. One of them, Herb Geraghty, is someone I know as a board member of the Rainbow Pro-Life Alliance.
I believe that Trump gets Bodily Autonomy right in some cases but completely misses it in other areas. But the examples I listed are only small samples of why I think we need to be respecting Bodily Autonomy for all people. My statement is that people should have the right to decide what is done with their bodies. However, we should not exclude them because they are not born yet or because they are gay, transgender, intersex, or anything else. Always follow the Golden Rule and do unto others what you would wish done unto you.
Comments from Fellow Friends and Board Members of the Rainbow Pro-Life Alliance:
“Donald Trump’s executive order mandating that there are only two sexes is an attempt to erase intersex, nonbinary, and trans people. Yet his declaration doesn’t change biological reality or the lived experiences of millions. There are 5.6 million intersex people in the United States alone, according to the American Journal of Human Biology. They cannot be defined out of existence. Intersex, trans, and non-binary people are valuable members of our communities and deserve our support.” – Sarah Terzo.
Sources for Executive Orders and General Information on things relevant to this post.
Please send me links if you want something else listed.
https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/types-of-intersex
https://rainbowroo.com.au/blogs/news/end-intersex-surgery-we-are-not-broken
https://nypost.com/2025/01/23/us-news/trump-issues-pardons-to-pro-lifers-imprisoned-under-face-act/
Chastity White Rose 