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. Etc.
But there are some other executive orders which can potentially lead to the death of some of my people. These dangers specifically apply to Transgender and Intersex people. 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.
“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, including one person that I know and care a lot about, 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.
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.
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 Intersex people:
https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/types-of-intersex
https://rainbowroo.com.au/blogs/news/end-intersex-surgery-we-are-not-broken
Chastity White Rose 