Donald Trump plans to sign a pair of executive orders on Monday that will make sweeping changes to how the federal government approaches gender, including erasing protections and recognition for transgender people and ending federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
During his inaugural address, Trump claimed his administration would “end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.” The White House has described the orders as part of its immediate priorities to “protect women from radical gender ideology” and “bring back American values.”
One of the planned orders deals with gender, holding that there are two immutable sexes, male and female, defined by whether an individual is born with eggs or sperm, officials told The Associated Press.
This definition is at odds both with the lived experience of the estimated nearly 2 million people who are trans in America, as well as the determinations of expert groups like the American Medical Association, which holds that gender identity exists along a spectrum, rather than an immutable male-female binary.
The execution action will roll back a Biden-era policy allowing people to choose “X” as a gender on U.S. passports rather than male or female, and directs the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to “ensure that official government documents, including passports and visas, reflect sex accurately.”
The order, reportedly entitled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” will also block requirements at federal facilities to use individuals’ chosen gender pronouns, and will require federal prisons and shelters to segregate people by the new sex definition.
It will also end the use of federal dollars for gender-affirming medical care, including inside federal prisons. (As The Independent has reported, trans people face exceptional levels of sexual and physical violence behind bars, and advocates argue such care both serves a medical and emotional need and keeps people safer.)
Trump officials framed the policies as a way to protect women.
“Women deserve protections, they deserve dignity, they deserve fairness, they deserve safety,” a senior policy adviser told The Free Press. “And so this is going to help establish that in federal policy and in federal laws.”
Studies show transgender people face disproportionate levels of violence compared with their cisgender counterparts.
Another order plans to halt federal agencies’ use of DEI programs, while Trump has also promised to end DEI requirements in the military and federally funded educational institutions.
A Trump official told NBC News the new administration will hold monthly meetings with agencies to “assess what type of DEI programs are still discriminating against Americans and figure out ways to end them.”
On the campaign trail, Trump said he would use education funding to pay “victims” of DEI at universities and schools.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort is also reportedly targeting $120 billion worth of recommended cuts on federal diversity programs.
Prominent U.S. companies, including Meta, Amazon, and McDonald’s have also announced recent DEI rollbacks at their firm, as part of a wider backlash and shift away from post-2020 diversity programs.
