On January 20, shortly after being sworn into office a second time, Donald Trump immediately set to work, signing executive orders that fulfilled the dark promises he made as the Republican candidate.
Among the orders he has signed is an attempt to reverse the 14th Amendment, dealing with birthright citizenship and the notice of leaving the World Health Organization. Both are edicts directly pointed at the LGBTQ+ community.
The first of the slew of orders immediately affects the wording and language of policies. Labeled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” the order reverses a Biden-era action, signed on the previous president’s day one and geared toward broadening the acceptance of gender identity.
The new order rescinds this, stripping “gender ideology guidance” from federal government communication, including on policies and forms. Displaying completely unmasked transphobia within the wording, Trump’s order states, “Agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination.”
Following this order, Trump also declared through executive action that inclusion policies, also signed into action by Biden, be struck down. Trump’s new orders take aim for at a dozen measures, or possibly more, that support racial equity and combat discrimination against queer and transgender people.
Speaking to a crowd in Washington after his inaugural speech, Trump stated that he would end policies that he claimed were “trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life” and push for a “color blind and merit-based” society.
These orders coincided with this year’s Martin Luther King Day holiday, which is meant to commemorate the civil rights leader and his belief for a more unified America. This irony was not lost on rights advocates who have warned of Trump’s push to implode hard-fought efforts to secure equitable policies and address systemic prejudices that have deprived equal opportunities for marginalized groups for decades.
Among the statements given in response to Trump’s reversals of DEI and trans rights rollbacks were organizations like Lambda Legal, a national organization that works on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
“We refuse to back down or be intimidated. We are not going anywhere, and we will fight back against these harmful provisions with everything we’ve got,” Kelley Robinson, HRC’s president, said in direct response to Trump’s attempts at policy change. Arm-in-arm with HRC, Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings stated in the organization’s press release, “Lambda Legal condemns in the strongest terms President Trump’s first actions in office targeting LGBTQ+ people, everyone living with HIV, and communities of color.”“These executive orders include direct attacks on LGBTQ+ communities, particularly transgender people, youth and families whose lives, dignity, and safety would be further jeopardized in this already-fraught moment when over two dozen states have already passed [many] anti-LGBTQ+ laws since 2022. While much of what is called for by the executive orders signed today will take time to implement, we will vigilantly monitor and be ready to challenge when they take effect.”