“This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is color blind and merit-based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”

                                        U.S. President Donald J. Trump at his inaugural address, Jan. 20, 2025

Before the current President of the United States officially returned to the resolute desk in the Oval Office one month ago, it had already seemed preordained that the 1.4 million United States citizens – including 300,000 children under 13 – who identify themselves as transgender were about to obliterated from our nation’s moral and ethical responsibilities. 

He campaigned on such a threat. Ripping pages from his “Agenda 47,” Trump sought to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors at the federal level. He said that he would convene an independent panel to investigate whether transgender hormone treatments and ideology increase the risk of extreme depression, aggression and even violence. He promised to end all programs that promoted gender transition at any age. Rolling back Title IX protections, he planned to ban transgender athletes from competing on teams that match their identity.

Further, the Trump campaign spent $65 million on ads that directly attacked transgender citizens.  “Kamala supports taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens,” the ad said. “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.” 

Then, just hours after he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, Trump affixed his smudgy Sharpie signature to an order that asserts that the government must define sex as only male or female and that such designation be reflected on official documents such as passports and policies. The order destroys what the mainstream medical industry suggests should be considered a “spectrum” rather than as an “either-or” definition.

Barely one month into his second term, the tidal wave of executive orders Trump has put forth against transgendered people are tearing away their human rights as citizens, and their roll-call reads like tumbling dominoes in a continuing warfare against the protection of human identity, choice and self-dignity:

• The administration has passed an executive action to ban federal funding or support for gender-affirming care for those under 19 years of age that includes puberty blocking drugs, hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery
• The action would also stop federal funding for medical schools and hospitals that research gender-affirming care. 
• An executive order has been given to the U.S. Department of Defense that directs new policies for transgender service members that could lead to an outright ban of transgender members of our armed forces. 
• The administration is placing pressure on the Education Department to enact policies aimed at blocking schools from using federal funding that supports students who are socially transitioning; further, the order would block schools from requiring teachers and other school staff to use names and pronouns that align with transgender students’ gender identify rather than the sex they were assigned at birth

In his inaugural address, Trump said that this nation’s policy “will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free. America will soon be greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before.” 

Currently, in a state whose population is nearly 13 million, there are 56,000 residents of Pennsylvania who define themselves as transgender, including 1.43 percent of that population who are aged between 13 and 17. One by one, each of these executive actions intend to further our nation’s divide against a population who already endures the slings and arrows of alienation, ignorance and hatred, all in retribution for the courage they have demonstrated in an effort to live their own private and authentic lives. 

As these policy actions reflect, the transgendered individual in the United States is not proud, prosperous and free and, by virtue of this blatant discrimination against them, we as a nation cannot rightly claim ourselves to be greater, stronger and far more exceptional.