‘Stop the transgender lunacy’: Trump’s violently transphobic policy threatens to strip trans rights
Donald Trump has vowed to instate a violently transphobic policy that will completely strip transgender individuals of their rights across the country.
His extreme policy is just the culmination of the anti-trans rhetoric he spread throughout his presidential campaign. He fed into transphobic hysteria by repeating false claims that children can get access to gender-affirming care in school. During a Wisconsin rally, he stated, “Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house, and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day in school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation? Can you even imagine this? What the hell is wrong with our country?” There are zero instances of a child ever undergoing gender-affirming surgery at school. However, wild, baseless claims like these have fed into transphobia across the country as the far-right claims children are being indoctrinated to become transgender.
The hysteria has already led to many states banning gender-affirming care for minors or passing discriminatory bills that ostracize the transgender community by dictating what bathrooms they can use or banning them from discussing their sexual identity in school. Now, Trump has horrifically promised to help the far-right achieve the ultimate goal of their transphobia, which is to take away fundamental rights from the trans community and essentially erase their existence in America.
Donald Trump proposes transphobic U.S. policy
During an appearance at a Turning Point conference in Arizona, Trump gave a speech in which he promised to “stop transgender lunacy.” He claimed, “It will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.” However, that’s not all he plans to do. He also promised to ban gender-affirming surgery for minors and remove all transgender individuals from the U.S. military and schools across the nation. Trump threatened, “I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools.” His statement didn’t specify if he meant that he would only force transgender staff out of schools or transgender students, as well.
Trump also stated that he would remove trans women from women’s sports and that his administration was “going to stop woke” in general. His rhetoric is deeply disturbing, especially since he has claimed he’ll push executive orders against transgender individuals on the first day of his presidency. He claims that with the mere stroke of his pen, he’s going to erase the entire community, removing them from the military, stripping them of their protections against workplace discrimination, barring them from receiving an education, and pushing U.S. policies to dictate how they can identify.
If he goes through with his vow to reinstate and expand his ban on transgender individuals in the military, it’s estimated he will terminate the employment of roughly 15,000 individuals, forcing their discharge from the army and deeming them “unfit to serve,” even as various branches of the military struggle with recruitment. As for his claim that he’ll remove transgender staff and students from schools, such a policy would face extensive legal challenges and public scrutiny. However, the mere fact he is threatening to do this is still deeply disturbing.
It’s hard to describe Trump’s statement as anything short of a declaration of war on the transgender community. He’s threatening the very existence of this entire community and trying to make it “U.S. policy” to discriminate against these individuals in school, the workplace, and the military. However, Trump is deeply mistaken if he believes he can erase an entire community with a stroke of his pen. The far-right can deny it all they want, but they can never change the fact that transgender individuals exist and always will exist. The LGBTQ+ community, civil rights groups, and the public won’t let Trump go through with his horrifically transphobic policies without a fight.
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