Here’s what Trump’s transphobia means for the UK
BY NANCY KELLEY, IMAGE BY GETTY VIA CANVA
The depth and breadth of the Trump White House’s attack on the trans community is hard to fully comprehend. As has so often been the case over recent years, it might feel tempting to look at the onslaught trans Americans are facing and think “that could never happen here”. But it could – in fact, much of what is happening in America has been welcomed by the UK’s so-called “gender critical” movement precisely because it represents the end goals the movement works towards.
Over the last two weeks, President Trump has published a series of Executive Orders that seek to use every legal means available to the Federal government to restrict the lives of trans+ Americans. These orders also use the power of the Presidential bully pulpit, and in some cases seek through flatly illegal and unconstitutional means to further restrict the lives of trans+ Americans. Spooling out hate one spiky black signature at a time, this is the most powerful man in the most powerful nation on earth, using every bit of power available to him to punch down on a tiny minority of the population.
The Executive Order on “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to Federal Government” is extraordinary in its scope: mandating a binary definition of sex that applies to all federal records, ID, forms and data collection instruments, pulling funding for all programmes “promoting” gender identity, mandating forced detransition of trans+ prisoners, and requiring trans+ prisoners be accommodated in line with their sex assigned at birth, just to name some of its intended effects.
The EO on “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” seeks to implement a ban on all access to gender affirming healthcare for under 19s, by defunding any institution that provides it and weaponising the regulatory state. The EO on “Prioritising Military Excellence” seeks to introduce a ban on trans+ Americans serving in the Armed Forces. The EO on “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 schooling” seeks to not only end LGBTQIA+ inclusive education, but also to prevent schools from supporting social transition, and criminalise teachers who treat trans+ students with the respect they deserve. Associated orders targeting “Diversity Equity and Inclusion” have unleashed an extraordinary wave of censorship across all government communications, data collection and funding programmes: purging the language necessary to describe the existence and experience of LGBTQIA+ people. Read these orders and follow trans+ journalists in the USA reporting on them: this is anti-trans extremism in the ascendent.
The UK is not immune to following this toxic pathway.
Supported by a media landscape that profits from transphobia, the UK “gender critical” movement has been hugely successful in laundering its goals in the language of reasonable concerns and common sense. But in practical terms their goals are the same as Trump’s: ending access to all gender affirming healthcare, first for children, then for young adults, removing rights guaranteed under the Equality Act and Gender Recognition Act, removing trans+ inclusive language from public services, ending inclusive education, instituting bathroom bans. What is happening in the US right now shows us what state sponsored transphobia really looks like once the veneer of politeness is stripped away.
Trans+ Americans now wake up every day in a world where their own government is trying to strip them of their rights, undermine their safety and remove any formal recognition that they exist. None of this should be a surprise – this is the Project 2025 Agenda, and trans+ Americans have been sounding the alarm about accelerating anti-trans action for years.
But trans+ people in the UK have been sounding these same alarms, and it has been all too easy for the rest of us not to listen. As the shockwaves from Trump 2.0 spill out around the world, if we want the UK to be a place where trans+ people can live safely, we have to stop looking away and start standing up for what we believe in.
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