On Monday, Trump signed an executive order that hopes to ban trans people from being active service members in the United States military. The order, while upsetting, is incredibly unsurprising. Many expected that Trump would sign the order as part of his day 1 spree, reimplementing his original trans military ban that he first tweeted about in 2017 and was enacted in 2019 (before being overturned by Biden). However, there was an unexpected element to the bill in the language that was used.
For years now, we’ve witnessed a rise in anti-trans legislation across the United States. The past week and a half that has marked the beginning of Trump’s second term in office has continued that trend exponentially on the federal level. The previous state-level bills, Trump’s executive order that hopes to define trans people out of existence, and his order that seeks to ban gender-affirming care for minors, for the most part all share one common trait. When it comes to explaining the need for anti-trans policies, they use trumped up science and safety concerns.
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It used to be that Republicans said that trans people shouldn’t use restrooms that matched their gender because of safety concerns. They said that gender-affirming care might not be safe and needed more studying: they were just worried about the children. There were concerns about longevity of feelings and detransitioners. And when it came to athletes it was about unfair biological advantages because trans women were “really just men.” We knew that they weren’t really worried about the safety of women and children (otherwise they’d do things to protect people from domestic violence and school shootings), but the veneer was always there.
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But Trump’s executive order banning trans people from the military unmasks the whole thing. Trump’s order doesn’t spend time worrying about safety or science. Trump’s order deals in dehumanizing language and decrying trans people as being dishonorable simply through their own existence. According to Trump’s order, trans people are liars, not able to meet physical needs, and liable to have had psychiatric hospitalization. While none of this is true to begin with, if the United States military requires people to meet a physical and mental standard, then simply being able to pass the physical and mental tests that are already part of serving in the armed forces should be enough regardless of someone’s gender identity. You can read the full order here.
Of course, we knew that this was how Trump and his ilk thought about us. And, in a way, it is a relief to see them being honest about how and why they hate us. With rhetoric like this, it’s clear that trying to calmly explain to them what gender-affirming care really is and what it does isn’t going to help. There’s no point explaining that those scientific questions about transition have actually all been answered and doctors and scientists have come to a consensus. While there are people on the street who might be swayed, those charging full steam ahead on this don’t need to hear about it. They hate us for the idea that we are trans.
But the truly concerning part about the language in this executive order is the parallel that it shares with past situations. The language is no longer about science and safety, it is purely about dehumanizing a marginalized group. It is the next logical step from their lines about trans identities being a social contagion: comments that already echoed Nazi talking points that claimed Jewish people were disease carriers. It doesn’t stop with removing protections for trans people.
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