Trump’s
Executive Order, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” neither defends women nor states any “biological truth.” Instead, it attempts to erase the existence of transgender and intersex people in order to further the administration’s own ideological agenda, which is grounded not in science but rather in a regressive and discriminatory worldview.
In a vague and unenforceable bid to redefine gender with reference to binary “sex,” the Executive Order refers only to the categories of male and female, defined by the production of reproductive cells “at conception.” This bizarre formulation, which disrespects the complexity of gender by reducing it to the production of eggs and sperm, entirely fails to consider the existence of intersex people and misunderstands embryonic development. At fertilization,
every embryo looks the same, with undifferentiated gonadal tissue that will not become testes or ovaries until sex differentiation occurs several weeks later.
In other words, no embryo produces reproductive cells at conception. The Trump administration purports to talk about “biological realities” but demonstrates that they lack any understanding of the relevant science.
Any attempt to declare a false binary among sex traits ignores the estimated 2% of the population that has innate variations in their sex characteristics, also known as intersex traits. While intersex infants are generally assigned male or female at birth (and are not considered a “third sex”), some are nonconsensually and unnecessarily
operated upon to fit societal expectations of those categories. Many grow up with a gender identity that does not align with their assigned sex at birth – meaning that there is overlap among transgender and intersex communities.
Notably, the Executive Order may invalidate a cisgender intersex person’s understanding of their own gender, too. A woman with Complete Androgen Insensitivity (
CAIS) may be assigned female at birth, and identify as a woman all her life, while having internal testes – yet the Order would define her sex by her gonads and the reproductive cells they produce. Other intersex variations further illustrate the glaring gaps in the Trump Administration’s conceptualization of sex and gender. A person with
ovotestes (both ovarian and testicular tissue) may produce both sperm and ova.
Would the Executive Order grant them both “male” and “female” category membership? On the other hand, a person born without gonads (gonadal agenesis), or with gonadal tissue that does not differentiate into functioning testes or ovaries (
gonadal dysgenesis), may be considered neither male nor female if these nonsensical definitions are applied.
It is important to remember that this Executive Order will have little, if any, immediate practical effect, and its provisions will be subject to legal challenges – some of which are already being prepared. The document is rather a declaration of intent to ignore science and to encourage discrimination against women who depart from narrow stereotypes, but these backwards goals will be fought.
The most immediate effect of this regressive order isn’t to change policy but to stoke fear, encouraging young people to hide their existence. All people, including young intersex and transgender people, deserve to be respected for who they are, and interACT won’t stop working toward a world where this is a reality.
