OIn his first day of mandate, President Donald Trump signed a series of decrees, one of which proclaiming that the United States will only recognize “two sexes, men and women” – a decision that could have practical and psychological implications Important for trans and non -binary people.
The order accuses “ideologists” of denying “the biological reality of sex” and rejects gender identity, calling it “disconnected from biological reality”. He declares that all federal agencies and employees will now use the term “sex”, not “gender”, in all applicable policies and documents, and that the forms of identification issued by the government “will reflect sex with precision of the holder ”.
Sex and gender are not always the same thing. Sex generally refers to the anatomy of a person, while sex has to do with the social and personal identity of a person and can differ from his assigned sex at birth.
“This [executive order] is clearly a plan of the Trump administration to erase the existence of transgender people under the law, “explains Harper Seldin, principal lawyer for the ACLU LGBTQ and HIV.
The White House did not respond to a request for comments for this story.
THE The order has experienced rapid implementation. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, sent an internal note to the staff of the State Department asking him to suspend all the applications for update of the gender marker, as well as to stop requests for gender marker “x” on a passport, which was deployed in 2022 for non -binary people, by The guardian.
Simone Chriss, lawyer and director of the Transgender Rights Initiative at Southern Legal Counsel in Florida, said that on January 23, she heard two customers who experienced this in the first hand. “One was verbally informed by telephone that a passport request requesting any type of change of gender marker had been suspended. The other was informed in person of the passport acceptance establishment they were not going to be treated, so it was useless to submit the request, ”explains Chriss. It also checked the passport status portal for customers and found that, although some have declared “request status: in progress” before January 20, they now say “request status: not available”. She is waiting prosecution to be deposited question the measures in order.
Florida is one of the four states that have prohibited the updates of gender markers on state identifiers, according to the movement to progress the movement, although other states have introduced bills that prohibit a similar action. Although Trump’s decree has no impact on states’ decisions concerning the modification of local identification documents, it has strengthened fears of the Trangender community. “The objective of this decree is to create a climate of fear and try to intimidate people to write their lives,” explains Seldin.
Here are the implications of Trump’s executive decree on the genre.
How does this have an impact on federal identification documents?
Trump’s decree denies the legal recognition of transgender and non -binary people, prohibiting them from updating their sex on federal documents, such as passports, visas and world entrance cards.
Time has contacted the Consular Affairs Office to find out about the new guidelines for gender marker changes on federal documents. A spokesperson for the State Department ordered the White House, who did not answer questions at the time of the press.
Under the Biden administration, citizens could update their gender markers to reflect their gender identity in a process that Chriss calls a more “affirmed” policy of self-assurance. “This means that you have signed an affidavit saying” This is what my gender marker is “, and you didn’t need medical certification,” she said. In 2022, the Biden administration deployed a “X” gender marker for non -binary, intersex or non -compliant people.
Learn more:: What Trump’s victory means for LGBTQ + rights
Citizens who have already changed their federal documents always have a valid form of identification, regardless of change. “The White House said it was not retroactive,” says Chriss. But the State Department will no longer issue new passports with the genre marker “X”.
Experts say rather that problems will arise with regard to the renewal of passports, which occurs every 10 years for the 16 years and over. “Many people are 10 years old before they care about this, but during renewal, it seems that they will return to the sex of the person attributed to birth,” explains Chriss. However, it is not clear how the government would implement such a policy. If Birth certificates or state identity documents have already been modified, it is not clear how the State Department would know that a person is transgender and applies the policy set out by Trump.
How does this have an impact on state identification documents?
The decree has no impact on state policies or most state identification documents. “States that have already prohibited these things have additional support for their prohibited policies, but that does not obtain any state to adopt a law prohibiting or a policy of banning changes in gender marker,” said Chriss.
However, there are concerns concerning the implications of this policy on the Real identifier law, which has more strict standards for the issue of identification cards in relation to a standard license, and requests additional documents or additional to verify a person’s information. From May 7, residents must have a real identity document in order to fly at the national level or to access certain federal facilities. “If you currently have a driving license that says the good gender marker, then to become in accordance with ID reality, you must show your birth certificate or your passport – could it cause a problem?” It is very specific to the state, and we will have to see how different states manage it, ”explains Chriss.
Transgender and non -binary people living in states according to which gender marker changes have already lived with discordant documents. Seldin warns that there could be problems with regard to requests where two ID forms are necessary, such as applying to loans, employment or housing.
For some, discordant documents could also present security risks as it can turn them off. “You give discretion to the person in front of you to find out whether or not they will accept or understand,” says Imara Jones, American political journalist and chief executive officer of the independent press organization, Translash Media. “It gives people a discrimination license because you are immediately marked as” other “.”
‘A wider signal’
Transgender people represent less than 1% of the American population for adults, according to a study by Kaiser Family Foundation and Washington JobBut they were at the center of state legislative assemblies through bathroom prohibitions and other bills, in the affairs of the Supreme Court which will decide the future of affirmative care and among elected officials . Shortly after, she was elected first openly transgender member of Congress in November, Democrat The representative of Delaware, Sarah McBride, was prevented from using the bathroom which corresponds to her gender identity in a change in room rules led by her colleague, republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
Research published in the journal Nature Human behavior have found that anti-trans-translates have led suicide attempts among trans and non-binary young people from 13 to 17 years to increase between 7 and 72%. The TREVOR project, a suicide prevention organization for young LGBTQ +, reported an increase of 33% volume for its line of crisis on the day of the inauguration compared to the weeks preceding that Trump swore as president.
Learn more:: Anti-Trans laws
Jones says that Trump’s decree will lead to exclusion – for example, Trump has canceled a rule of the Biden era which allowed Trans to serve in the army, and the hill reported that the president should sign A decree explicitly prohibiting trans persons from military service.
“Decrees and executive laws do not only concern the practical implementation and the mechanics of the implementation of what these laws and orders seek to do – it is also a broader signal in the country on this Who is acceptable and who is not acceptable, ”says Jones. “I think the thing that these decrees do is that they say that in this country, trans people are personae non gratae. And therefore, therefore, this allows individuals of authority to be able to exercise their discretion against trans people, if that’s what they want to do. »»
