During the weekend, it was announced that the Trump administration has made a motion to have the Department of Health and Human Services to narrow the definition of gender to “those assigned to one at birth,” or visa-vie–your genitals.
During the Obama administration, President Barack Obama moved to create a more inclusive environment for those who are transgender. Under Title IX–a law that banned discrimination based on sex–they were able to create a lax definition of “gender” to protect transgender individuals from discrimination under federal law. It allowed the acceptance of gender identity in places such as schools, homeless shelters, and prisons.
This is in danger. In fact, the acceptance of transgenderism is at risk.
Donald Trump set his point of view on trans people. He showed us how he felt when he tried to ban transgender people from serving in the military, citing that they were a “disruption” and that their surgeries were much too costly.
Bruce Hausknecht, a judicial analyst for Focus on the Family, a Christian conservative organization, had this to say about the actions taken by the Obama administration, “with regard to the Title IX education amendments from 1972, the word ‘sex’ was always intended to mean biological sex, and the statute does not include the word ‘gender, at all,” Hausknecht continued to the Washington Post, “it is already the position of the Trump Administration’s Departments of Justice and Education that the reference to “sex” in Title IX does not apply to gender identity.”
The administration plans to get rid of these protections. This would have transgender individuals go to the prison of their sex, even if they have completely transitioned. This a population already targeted 10 times more victimized for sexual assault while in incarceration. Protections for transgender students to use the bathroom of their gender disappears.
Currently, there is a social media outcry and various protests in DC. The current hashtag is WeWontBeErased and circulates Twitter and Facebook alike as members of the community and their allies bite back against the HHS and administration.
