President Trump’s administration is attempting to strip transgender people of official recognition by creating a narrow definition of gender as being only male or female and unchangeable once it is determined at birth.
The Department of Health and Human Services has undertaken an effort across several government departments to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex The New York Times reports citing a government memo that it obtained.
That definition would be as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals a person is born with.
Such an interpretation would reverse the expansion of transgender rights that took place under the previous administration of President Obama.
It would also set back aspirations for tolerance and equality among the estimated 0.7 percent of the population that identifies as transgender. Most transgender people live with a profound sense that the gender assigned to them at birth was wrong and transition to the opposite sex, while others live a non-binary or gender fluid life.
Activists in the LGBTQ community and those who identify as transgender posted on social media about the fears the memo triggered. Many began using the hashtag “#WontBeErased” in condemning the drafted memo.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declined to comment on what she called “allegedly leaked documents” but cited a ruling by a conservative U.S. district judge as a guide to transgender policy.
Ruling on a challenge to one aspect of the Affordable Care Act, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas found in 2016 that there was no protection against discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
A leading transgender advocate called the government’s reported action a “super aggressive, dismissive, dangerous move.”
“They are saying we don’t exist,” said Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Rights.
The Obama administration enacted regulations and followed court rulings that protected transgender people from discrimination, upsetting religious conservatives who make up a key core of Trump supporters.
The Trump administration has also sought to ban transgender people from military service and rescinded guidance to public schools recommending that transgender students be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice.
A draft of the Trump administration memo says gender should be determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable,” the memo says, according to the Times.
Psychiatrists no longer consider being transgender a disorder and several U.S. courts have found the Obama interpretation of protecting transgender people against discrimination as sound. But the Trump administration has chosen to abide by the ruling of O’Connor.
Lambda Legal, a national legal organization advocating for LGBTQ rights, wrote, “Transgender folks: You are valid. You matter. You are loved. We will not stop fighting for your rights and you #WontBeErased by this heartless administration. #TransRightsAreHumanRights.”
? #Transgender folks: You are valid. You matter. You are loved.
?♡? ♡?
We will not stop fighting for your rights and you #WontBeErased by this heartless administration. #TransRightsAreHumanRights— Lambda Legal (@LambdaLegal) October 21, 2018
Chase Strangio, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote on Twitter, “I know folks are scared and hurt. So am I. We are working to stop this and we will never give up. The courts are scary. The administration is scary. This world is scary. We still have tools. I am here. I see your beautiful humanity. And I love you.”
I know folks are scared and hurt. So am I. We are working to stop this and we will never give up. The courts are scary. The administration is scary. This world is scary. We still have tools. I am here. I see your beautiful humanity. And I love you.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) October 21, 2018