We Aren’t Powerless in the Face of Trump’s Outrageous, Anti-Trans Edicts

The Trump administration’s chaotic attacks on marginalized people and the workings of the federal government itself have continued this week, with executive orders attempting to ban gender-affirming care for people 18 years or younger and threatening to withhold federal funding from schools that teach “gender ideology.” These actions follow an executive order banning trans people from the US military, and an order declaring that a person’s gender is chromosomally determined at “conception.” (The claim that sex differentiation – which does not determine gender — occurs at conception is not only scientifically incorrect, but also signals a potential strategy to enshrine the anti-choice concept of “fetal personhood” in federal law.) The administration also enacted a bathroom ban targeting trans people at all federal facilities this week.

A transgender woman in federal prison is suing the administration over Executive Order 14166 — Trump’s day one attack against trans people — after the woman was moved to solitary confinement and informed that she would soon be transferred to a men’s facility. The suit outlines that such a move would put the plaintiff, who filed her complaint under the pseudonym Maria Moe, “at an extremely high risk of harassment, abuse, violence and sexual assault.”

Meanwhile, some trans people have been unable to renew their passports, as Trump’s State Department took steps to prevent trans people from obtaining federal identification that aligns with their gender identities. Some trans people have reported that their pending passport applications appear to be frozen.

As expected, keeping up with the damage done by this administration can be dizzying work. Last week, some of my colleagues were referring to Trump’s first executive order attacking trans people as “the anti-trans order.” Now, amid multiple executive volleys targeting trans life and existence, it’s clear that people will have to be more specific. Targeting trans people is a major priority for this administration. Trump rode waves of public discontent to the White House, but he has nothing material to offer people who are dissatisfied with the state of the world or with their own lives. In fact, he and the band of billionaire looters who have attached themselves to this administration are determined to gut life-giving and life-saving services, in order to further enrich the ultra-wealthy. To distract from this smash-and-grab agenda, Trump must follow the fascist tradition of centering scapegoats. His favorite targets, at present, are immigrants and trans people. By blaming marginalized people for the supposed degradation of society, and harming those people, Trump creates a spectacle for his supporters to applaud. Even as the services they depend on are imperiled, many will embrace a narrative that they are being protected and defended.

As Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly trans member of Congress, has stated, “When they’re going after trans people, with their right hand they’re picking the pocket of American workers, they’re fleecing seniors, they’re undermining unions. And this is all part of that politics of misdirection and distraction and division.”

For those of us who care deeply about trans children and trans communities, it’s important to stay focused on what the moment demands of us. This morning, I spoke with Andrea Ritchie, the co-founder of Interrupting Criminalization, about Trump’s order banning gender-affirming care for people 18 years and younger. Ritchie is an organizer, author, and researcher who has been documenting, advocating, litigating, and agitating around the criminalization of Black women, girls, and gender-expansive people for the past three decades. She stressed the importance of refusing to comply with Trump’s edicts around gender-affirming care. “While filled with vile, criminalizing language designed to deny the existence of trans kids and trans people, isolate them and their families and communities, and deter health care providers and educators from continuing care, these executive orders carry no consequences for providers who adhere to their commitment to offering affirming, life-saving, and scientifically sound treatment to their trans patients beyond threats to federal funding,” Ritchie said. “While federal funding cuts could carry severe consequences for collective capacity to offer care, they do not criminalize it.”

Ritchie emphasized that this order “heralds a full frontal attack on all expressions of sexual, gender, and reproductive autonomy.” That assault must be met with resistance now, rather than being allowed to gain unobstructed momentum. “Bending to these threats will only embolden the administration to go further; courageous collective resistance is the only thing that will stop it,” Ritchie said. “We owe it to trans youth and communities to push back with all our might, to refuse to deny care, to challenge administrators who try to shut it down, to support providers under attack, and to contribute to mutual aid efforts that will ensure continuity of care.”

Interrupting Criminalization is offering to help doctors and clinicians grappling with these issues think through what resisting Trump’s edicts might look like in practice. “If you are a health care provider looking for support around how to resist, reach out to Interrupting Criminalization’s Health Care Strategy Consult Desk [and] join our Beyond Do No Harm Network,” Ritchie said. “If you are an organizer, check out We Must Fight in Solidarity for Trans Youth for ideas about how you can show up for trans youth and communities in this moment, along with a list of groups you can support and contribute to.”

I also spoke with author and organizer Dean Spade about the threats trans people are facing and what solidarity and community defense should look like right now. Spade has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He is also a professor at the Seattle University School of Law. “It is terrifying to watch the right become so mobilized around trying to erase and destroy trans people,” Spade said. While acknowledging that “it makes sense that people are scared for themselves and for loved ones,” Dean emphasized that “we aren’t powerless in the face of these outrageous edicts.” As community members, we have the power to organize and the power to refuse. “We can still do what we’ve always done — take care of each other, break rules, and help people get what they need to survive,” Spade said. “All of us can help people get a place to sleep, get away from abusive parents and partners, find a meal or warm clothes. All of us can write to trans people who are locked up and form a support system from the outside,” he said. “Many of us can share medicines, or break rules at our jobs — as nurses, teachers, social workers, doctors — to help people get essentials. This is a time for sustained care for one another, careful rule-breaking, and disobedience in the face of illegitimate authority.”

It’s important to keep in mind that organized opposition to Trump’s agenda is already getting results. During the last week, ICE and other federal agencies descended upon Chicago, loudly proclaiming that our city would be ground zero for Trump’s mass deportation agenda. While ICE did seize an unspecified number of people in Chicago, and its surrounding suburbs, the effort fell far short of the agency’s expectations. Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan whined to the press, “Sanctuary cities are making it very difficult to arrest the criminals. For instance Chicago, very well educated, they’ve been educated how to defy ICE, how to hide from ICE.” Homan continued, “They call it ‘Know Your Rights.’ I call it how to escape arrest.”

As a Chicagoan, I took great pride in those complaints and characterizations. While it is heartbreaking that some Chicago area residents were snatched from their homes and separated from their families, this administration failed in its efforts to break our city. They sought to make an example of us and to establish that our city’s politics would offer no protection from their stormtroopers. However, the organized efforts of community members who educated each other about their rights, patrolled at-risk areas, and followed up on ICE sightings around the city made the opposite clear: resistance is not futile. We cannot prevent all of this administration’s harms, but we can greatly diminish their impacts if we are willing to organize vigorously and get in their way.

We must bring this same energy to the defense of trans people and trans lives. The message should be clear among all people of conscience: We will not cooperate with the fascist, anti-trans agenda. We will protect trans children. We will not live inside a fascist fantasy or impose it upon others. We will defy, resist and refuse. We will defend each other.