There were 2.3 million U.S. adults that identified as transgender in 2024, according to Household Pulse Survey data. Another 4.11 million adults did not fall under male, female or transgender umbrellas. There were millions of nonbinary, intersex or gender-nonconforming adults in America. These adults have dreams, fears and loved ones. But as of Jan. 20, all of these people ceased to matter, according to our president.
“Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” proclaiming that “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.”
This strict ruling puts human nature in a box, a box that doesn’t allow for other legitimate biological truths.
Alice Murphy is a transgender computer science major at Fresno City College who argues that there is more subtlety to this discussion than Trump lets on.
“Intersex people exist, there is a spectrum. You could say there is a spectrum of sex the same way that there is a spectrum of gender,” Murphy said.
The executive order writes that those who exist outside of cisgender labels “used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women.”
Peter Fleming is a transgender law, public policy and society major at FCC who believes that Trump’s reasoning is archaic, to say the least.
“Cisgender women will say that they need spaces away from anyone we perceive as other for our safety, and I really believe it’s entirely anti-feminist to say something like that,” Fleming said. “It’s a new way to ostracize any other type of woman that they don’t understand, any woman that doesn’t fit the narrow mold of fascist femininity.”
Trump’s own opinions on the subject are flexible. He changes them to fit the popular opinion. Where was this concern for single-sex safety when Trump would barge into dressing rooms as the owner of the Miss USA pageant? What about in 2016, when he defended open bathroom policies, stating that there were “very few complaints the way it is?”
“It’s not like the opinion of a real estate millionaire should have any kind of standing when it comes to the rights of trans people. But I guess it does now,” Fleming said.
Passports
Multiple agencies have already taken steps to implement this order, like the U.S. Department of State, which will no longer grant people the freedom to express their true identity on their passports by restricting the sex markers with only M or F to match biological sex at birth. This may not sound like a big deal to many, but if this is acceptable, where do we cross the line?
“What if I wanted to change it [sex] on my drivers license, are they going to attack the states for allowing that too?” Ryan Hewuer asked. “It’s just a massive overreach that will lead to even more concerns, because if your documents don’t match up, you can be super disenfranchised.”
Hewuer, a transgender early childhood education major at FCC, is protected under California’s anti-discrimination laws at school and work. But in reality, discrimination creeps around every corner.
“I live in Clovis now and I get really nasty stares because I’m pretty gender non-conforming. I have not been able to find a job in the three years since I graduated high school, jobs that I’m 100% qualified for,” Hewuer said. “I don’t get eggs thrown at me, but there’s always this very subtle signal that I don’t belong here.”
“Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports”
Transgender exclusion is perhaps felt the strongest in the field of athletics. Trump signed another executive order on Feb. 5, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” To Trump, allowing transgender women to compete with other cisgendered women is “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
If Trump is really interested in the equal opportunity for women to excel in competitive sports, why can’t he choose to focus on a much more pressing issue; the wage gap? Female athletes around the world work just as hard as male athletes, but inequality in pay has remained an issue for many years. Is it really more important to exclude the small minority of transgender athletes than to fight for an equality that will affect millions more people?
I think the wording of this executive order is also important to focus on. “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports” almost implies that transgender men have nothing to worry about. The concept of women in men’s sports is not mentioned in the executive order even once. What is the reason for this distinction? The short answer: Sexism.
In the sports field, transgender women are still by and large perceived as men, and have to deal with a lot of grief because of it, whereas transgender men are celebrated more often. This highlights a cultural belief that men are seen as the default in athleticism, while women are the ones in need of safeguarding.
It implies that cisgendered men are naturally more advanced and athletically gifted, so it really doesn’t matter if a single “woman” just happens to join the men’s team. But if a “man” joins the women’s team, someone is cheating.
“Take Michael Phelps. He has a biological advantage because of his anatomy, he has hands like paddles and a longer wingspan. So is it unfair for him to compete in sports because he has a biological advantage?” Murphy said.
Although scientific research shows that transgender women are at a disadvantage, the stereotype prevails.
Student Athlete Survey
When preparing for this article, I wanted to interview a transgender athlete, and when I couldn’t find any transgender student athletes at FCC, I thought of another solution.
I decided to survey student athletes at FCC and get their opinion; would they actually care if a transgender athlete was on their team? What about if that athlete was to share their locker room, their “intimate single-sex spaces?”
“We’re Gen Z college kids from California, of course everyone I talk to will be woke and welcoming,” I thought. I was wrong.
I asked those two questions to 50 student athletes on campus. Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed said that they would be fine with having a transgender athlete on their team. This is good news, but there is still a large chunk of people – 16 in total – who are completely close-minded to the idea of welcoming a transgender athlete.
Sixty percent said that they would not feel comfortable sharing a locker room with a transgender athlete. This means that many of those comfortable with the idea of welcoming a transgender athlete do not want to put the idea into realistic motion. I believe that by forcibly separating the athlete from the team, the athlete will not get the same experience as the rest of the team, and this could result in further discrimination.
Of course, changing perceptions is easier said than done. If any of the players in a locker room feel uncomfortable, including the transgender athlete, this is a valid concern. But I still think that it is incredibly important that the transgender athlete has the ultimate choice to decide where they belong. If you’re okay with them on the team, then they need somewhere to change clothes.
“If you are a member of any kind of minority group… you have once in the history of America been in my shoes,” Fleming said. “‘Oh, we don’t want people of color on our sports team.’ These are real things that people have really believed, and if you have any kind of brain, you can see how this is harmful.”
Hewuer was disappointed to hear these statistics, but was not surprised, and shared a simple solution to this prejudice.
“We just don’t try out for sports anymore, It’s not worth the hassle because you fight tooth and nail and it’s awkward for everyone involved,” Hewuer said. “But that discomfort can go away once you actually talk to trans people and interact with them and realize that we are just regular people.”
Day of Remembrance
The Transgender Day of Remembrance is an annual holiday that was founded in 1999 and serves to honor the memory of those lost to transphobic violence. But in 2021, the U.S. saw a record number of transphobic deaths. There has clearly been a gradual climb in hatred over the years. But why?
“The internet. That is the primary way Americans get their news and their fake news and the misinformation and the hate mongering,” Hewuer said. “There’s a new person who was targeted because of being trans every week, and it makes me scared.”
I had never heard of this day of remembrance until I did research for this article. I was surprised that this was a revelation for me, but at the same time, it makes perfect sense that this would be hidden from the majority. Murder is a difficult subject, but it is a news publication’s duty to report on each one fairly. But these cases are hardly ever given proper treatment.
Why would Fox News talk about the LA deputies and sheriffs charged with the cover-up of transphobic violence towards Emmett Brock, when they could instead write two separate articles about the stabbing of a USPS carrier in New York? People don’t hear about transphobic violence, because our social platforms censor these tragedies.
“It’s the algorithms. These social media sites are programmed to keep you on the app longer… so if you’re a trans person using Instagram, you aren’t going to see transphobic rhetoric,” Hewuer said. “But if you’re someone who agrees with that rhetoric, you’re going to stay on the app longer, and it’s going to feed you more and more.”
“Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”
Donald Trump signed another executive order on Jan. 28, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” It is now “the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another,” according to the order.
The first thing that strikes me when reading this – besides the total denunciation of gender confirmation – is the focus on children.
The entire executive order only focuses on gender confirmation, or “mutilation,” within the scope of minors. Trump sounds like he is working to save these children who will “begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children through breastfeeding.”
“People always imagine that one of the first steps people go through in their transition is surgery, or that surgery is an immediately attainable goal for them,” Murphy said. “But I would definitely say that most of the trans people I’ve encountered don’t feel that way, or it’s something that they’ve been working towards for a long time.”
The truth of the matter is that gender confirmation rarely occurs within children in the U.S., according to Harvard researchers. Trump centers his legislation around children just to strike fear within vulnerable parents.
“I would definitely say that is an intentional wording to make the issue more intensified than it really is, and I feel like it also helps continue the narrative that trans people are pedophiles, or that trans people are forcibly converting and encouraging kids to transition,” Murphy said.
According to the official website of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, its mission statement is “to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans, by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health, and social services.”
How does the strict division of men and women enhance the health and well-being of Americans? How does the defunding of gender confirmation provide effective health and human services?
Coping with Hate
In an oppressive America, FCC acts as a safe haven for transgender people. Our faculty works to keep every student comfortable, regardless of gender identity. Each transgender student I spoke to praised the school and its commitment to inclusion.
Fleming is the secretary for the school’s GSA (Gender and Sexuality Alliance), a group of students that have each other’s back when they need it most.
“To me, the GSA is a platform for community and change in a time where every day is a struggle,” Fleming said. “We work to promote the interests of the community through activism, fundraising… we’re not just sitting around being gay, as great as that would be.”
It’s important to remember that a group of leaders at any given time cannot silence other people or their history. We have seen time and time again that the LGBTQ+ community survives.
Magnus Hirschfeld is regarded as one of the earliest LGBTQ+ advocates during the Nazi regime. A prolific sexologist and physician, Hirschfeld founded the first LGBTQ+ rights organization, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee. Of course, he was later targeted by the Nazis and exiled for being Jewish and gay. He was beaten, looted and his books were even burned. Yet we still know his name.
My point is that in the face of similar oppression, these voices, these people live on. We cannot be afraid to talk about this. It will get worse before it gets better, but this shouldn’t stop anyone from taking a stand.
“If you think that voting is your civic duty and that’s it, then you have a narrow sense of what it is to live in a society and to be an American,” Hewuer said. “When someone says that they don’t want to get political, or they don’t want to talk about politics, then everyone who is affected by those politics are being swept under the rug.”
