Not Here in River City, Part IV: Executive Disorder

Part I, Part II & Part III

Long ago, before he realized how expedient we could be and how vulnerable we are, Donald Trump had a moderate view of transgender people.

He first spoke specifically about transgender rights when the controversial “bathroom bill” went into effect in North Carolina during the [2016] campaign. Though not committing either way, Trump called it a “very strong” move to force people to use the sex indicated on their birth certificate to determine which bathroom they used, while noting that the state was “paying a big price” for implementing it. Those comments came during an April 21, 2016 appearance NBC’s “Today,” during which he also said Caitlyn Jenner could use any bathroom she wanted if she visited Trump Tower in New York.

                        —ABC News, 27 July, 2017

That is of course no longer the case. In the runup to the 2024 election, Trump made it clear transgender people and immigrants would be his primary political targets— and he has been true to his word. On Inauguration Day he hit the ground running, with guns blazing. This is of course just what he did when he took office in 2017—by July he was calling for removal of transgender people from all branches of the United States military and he reversed the Obama-era policies that allowed students to use bathrooms that did not conform with their birth certificates (ABC News, 27 July, 2017). This time around, however, it is much, much worse. He has come after us on all fronts, and this time his handlers have Project 2525 in their holsters, telling them just how to go after the civil rights of all Americans and systematically dismantle the Republic in preparation of turning it into a dystopian nightmare. Attacks against trans people have come on all fronts, but the bulwark are the many Executive Orders that target us.

What is an Executive Order? I’m glad you asked. It’s a direct instruction by the President, as provided by Article 2 in the U.S. Constitution, which gives the Chief Executive the power to manage the Federal Government at his or her discretion. Executive Orders must conform to either laws passed by Congress or the U.S. Constitution, or, hopefully, both, but Trump pays no heed to the Constitution or to the law. He simply does what he wants because neither the Legislative Branch or the Judicial Branch, whose duty is to check him, simply will not stop him, no matter what actions he takes. For your information, this is why we are in the midst of a Constitutional Crisis. Our democracy is at stake here.

I will take a commercial break here and say that if you are interested in keeping up with the chaotic actions of Donald J. Trump, you’ll not go wrong by reading the Substack Erin in the Morning. Erin Reed is the partner of Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr, and the closely follows laws, court decisions, and executive actions that affect trans people. And for a wider look at the chaos the Trump Administration is unleashing upon America, check out the Substack This Week in Democracy. This is, of course not an actual commercial. My recommendations are not for sale. These are simply two of the sources which I find useful in these troubling times. Links for both are in the Works Cited section.

Here’s a partial list of Donald J. Trumps Executive Order and Actions affecting trans and LGB people, which began ON HIS FIRST DAY IN OFFICE in this second term. I take these directly from a list compiled by Lindsey Dawson and Jennifer Kates at KFF.org:

January 20, 2025

Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions    

Reverses existing orders to:

• Prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity  or sexual orientation (Executive Order 13988)
• Advance equality for LGBT, Queer, and Intersex Individuals (E.O. 14075)
• Disbands the White House Gender Policy Council (E.O. 14020)
• Rescinds orders for LGBTQ+ health equity, national public heal needs, data collection, and nondiscrimination protections in schools, in health care, and other areas.

Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to The Federal Government

Purpose: To define sex as an immutable binary biological classification and remove recognition of the concept of gender identity, including in sex protections and in agency operations.

 “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female” and directs the Executive Branch to “enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality.”

• Defines sex as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.” States that “’sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity’” and that gender identity “does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.”

• Defines male and female based on reproductive cell production.
• Introduces the term “gender ideology,” defined as including  “the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex” and “maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.”
• Directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to provide the U.S. government, external partners, and the public guidance expanding on the sex-based definitions set forth in the order within 30 days.
• Directs each agency and all federal employees to “enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes,” including “when interpreting or applying statutes, regulations, or guidance and in all other official agency business, documents, and communications.”
• Directs each agency and all Federal employees, “when administering or enforcing sex-based distinctions,” to “use the term sex and not gender in all applicable Federal policies and documents.”
• Directs agencies to “remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications or other messages.” Directs agency forms to exclude gender identity and directs agencies to “take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology.”
• Requires that federal funds “not be used to promote gender ideology” and directs agencies to ensure “grant funds do not promote gender ideology.”
• Directs the Attorney General to ensure the Bureau of Prisons revises policies to prohibit federal funds from being expended “for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
• Rescinds multiple executive orders issued by President Biden, including: “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation” (13988), “Establishment of the White House Gender Policy Council” (14020) (which is also dissolved), and “Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals” (14075).
• Also directs agencies to rescind certain guidance documents, including “The White House Toolkit on Transgender Equality”; “The Attorney General’s Memorandum of March 26, 2021 entitled “Application of Bostock v. Clayton County to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972,?” and range of orders related to LGBTQ+ students in schools.

Paradoxically—and intentionally—this order does not protect women; instead, it restricts them by calling any deviation from the male/female “gender ideology.” Of course, the real ideology is insisting in the face of compelling and overwhelming biological evidence otherwise that there are two and only two genders.

A third first day Executive Order, Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing, terminates all DEI activities.

Trump has issued many other E.O.s since. Many are not trans-specific, but trans-adjacent, attacking DEI and consumer protection programs, various branches of the Federal government, and various groups and individuals. Some are absolutely targeted at trans people, for instance:

January 28’s, Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation—which restricts gender-affirming care for Americans under age 19, calling it mutilation, and weaponizes the Department of Justice to prosecute those who provide such care. As do many of Trump’s executive actions, it does the opposite of what it purports.

January 29’s Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling, which removes federal funding from schools that do not cease support for transgender students or that continue to use chosen pronouns and names, ends all instruction and programs around transgender issues, and restricts participation of self-identified transgender students in some activities. Because this is an Orwellian administration, the order actually ends discussion and exploration of gender while instituting a radical binary indoctrination. See how this works? Black is white and white is black. If you have not read George Orwell’s 1984, please do so. If you have, do yourself a favor and re-read it.

There are any number of other Executive Orders that target transgender people and gender-affirming care, but here’s a big one: January 27’s Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness

sets up the discharge of thousands of distinguished military careers by deeming transgender service members liars, mentally ill, selfish non-warriors.

I could go on and on and on just about Trump’s Executive Orders, but there’s no need; it’s all there on the Executive Branch’s website: Plan 2025 in action.

Doge, the hastily-created non-department Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Trump’s biggest donor, the colossal asshole Elon Musk, and staffed with twenty-something no-nothings who have been given almost unlimited power, has been busily deconstructing every branch of the federal government, closing programs and agencies and departments and firing thousands and thousands and thousand of the hard-working Federal employees that keep our airways safe, warn us about upcoming weather disturbances, provide aid when disasters occur to our countrysides and cities, inspect our meat so it won’t kill us, staff our national parks—well, here, too, I could go on and on. And there are of course, the tariffs, which have only begun to drive up prices and screw up distribution systems. It’s all a genuine clusterfuck that has downgraded our nation’s credit rating, turned our allies into adversaries and our enemies (all, essentially dictatorships) into best buddies, driven the stock market crazy, cozied up to despots, threatened invasion of three sovereign nations, deregulated environmental protections, set in motion processes that has already increased prices on some goods and will lead to huge increases in prices of foreign goods we cannot yet make in the United States, and ensured supply chain disruptions that will leave shelves bare in groceries and other stores. When the smoke clears, if Trump is not king and if there is not a civil war and if Russia or China has not decided not, under an idiotic, dysfunctional administration, to take the U.S. out with a nuclear or biological first strike—if none of this happens, and it damn well might, America will be much diminished, no longer the world’s most powerful country, just one of many nations aspiring to power and dominance.

In my next piece I will talk about nasty, hateful, and crazy anti-trans actions and laws in the various states, and then, I promise you, I will wrap this series up by talking about what we can do to protect ourselves and our friends and families.

Works Cited

ABC News. (2017, 26 July). Donald Trump’s Past Statements About LGBT Rights. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trumps-past-statements-lgbt-rights/story?id=48858527. (Accessed 14 May, 2025).

Dawson, Lindsey, & Kates, Jennifer. (2025, 25 April). Overview of President Trump’s Executive Actions Impacting LGBTQ+ Health. KFF: The Independent Source for Health Policy Research, Polling, and News. https://www.kff.org/other/fact-sheet/overview-of-president-trumps-executive-actions-impacting-lgbtq-health/. (Accessed 14 May, 2025).

Reed, Erin. Erin in the Morning: News and Discussion on Trans Legislation and Life. https://www.erininthemorning.com/. (Accessed 14 May, 2025).

Team Zeteo. This Week in Democracy. This Week in Democracy zeteo+this-week-in-democracy@substack.com. You’ll need to subscribe to Zeteo to receive it, but it is most comprehensive. The news of the week will arrive in an e-mail.

Trump, Donald. (2025, 20 January). Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/initial-rescissions-of-harmful-executive-orders-and-actions/. (Retrieved 14 May, 2025).

Trump, Donald. (2025, January 20). Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/. (Retrieved 14 May, 2025).

Trump, Donald. (2025, January 20). Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing. (Retrieved 14 May, 2025).

Category: Transgender Opinion, Transgender Politics