Is Trump really 'declaring war' on trans-identified people?
A few events in recent memory stand out as particularly jarring for a modern-day Rip van Winkle to witness on stirring from his sleep. Take Queen Elizabeth II’s pandemic-era address, promising that “we will meet again”, broadcast to an eerily depopulated Piccadilly Square. Or the teenager who set fire to a congressman’s office to protest the ban of their beloved Chinese psy-op. Donald Trump’s inauguration speech yesterday provided another such occasion, as the President announced to the world that, “as of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
How on earth — Rip van Winkle might ask himself — did human beings in the 21st century become so befuddled about something so basic as sex, that the President must make such a statement as a matter of policy, inviting intense controversy?
Shortly after his inauguration, Trump rescinded one of predecessor Joe Biden’s day-one executive orders intended to “prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation”. The federal government will henceforth define sex as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female”. The term “is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity’.”
Trump has signed an executive order which recognises “that women are biologically distinct from men”. It also reinstates biological sex, as opposed to self-reported gender identity, on government-issued identification documents such as passports and visas; segregates federal prisons and immigration detention centres on the basis of sex, not gender identity; ends “taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners”, a policy featured in the Trump campaign’s most effective ad; emphasises sex-based language in federal policy and communications; and lifts the requirement to use preferred pronouns in government offices and facilities, on the basis that such requirements violate free-speech protections.
To paraphrase something someone else said: If a kid insists he is actually Spider-Man and you say he isn’t, you are not “erasing” him or denying his existence (much less issuing a death threat or committing “literal genocide”). You are simply stating a fact about reality.
But the hysteria I am seeing in my social circles online is unreal. I just wish I could have a rational discussion with these people. How can the term “transgender” even be meaningful or defined absent the reality of sex? Though I suppose even that could be twisted around: if sex isn’t a real thing, if male and female are not a true binary distinction, then there really wouldn’t be a difference between “trans” and “cis” people and I guess everyone would just be what they say they are at any given moment. (Which, to be clear, is absurd.)
Sorry, trans activists, but the winner of the 1976 men’s Olympic decathlon was not (and still isn’t) a woman, and the star of the movie Juno wasn’t (and still isn’t) a man. But they both still exist, as the unique humans they have always been.
Another thought: sadly, I fear that at best this will come off as one of those “hate the sin, love the sinner” approaches. The argument will be made that even if this isn’t a “war on trans-identified PEOPLE,” it’s a war on trans identification, and that will be portrayed as just as bad.
But I just want to shake those people who insist “trans women are women” and ask them to define “women” and “trans” in a way that isn’t circular, or dependent on either gender stereotypes or on the binary nature of sex.