Transphobia in the United States

"SB 244 says that any driver’s license with a gender marker that is inconsistent with sex at birth is invalid as of February 26, 2026. The law contains no grace period. The Kansas Department of Revenue (KDOR) must provide written notice to anyone whose license is affected by this law, and many people have already received a letter informing them that their state-issued driver’s license is now invalid."

"Kansas law puts transgender people in an impossible position. For transgender people, using the restroom consistent with their gender and how they live their lives, is now against the law in government buildings. But using the restroom consistent with their sex at birth in government buildings may out them as transgender and be unsafe. Either way, transgender people may be punished and harassed."

"A New York Times bestseller that chronicles the true story of a nonbinary teenager set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California. A collection of stories and poems by a New York Times bestselling author about the feelings and experiences of teenagers in love. An NPR “best book of the year” award winner featuring authors and illustrators sharing personal stories about their conversations with their kids about race in America today. This is a small sampling of the kinds of books that have been marked for “quarantine” in school libraries run by the Defense Department’s Education Activity, or DoDEA. For months, officials atop this agency have been quietly flagging and banning dozens of books in response to President Donald Trump’s executiveorders requiring federal agencies to eliminate programs or materials related to diversity, equity and inclusion. The effect is that tens of thousands of kids in U.S. military families living on military bases worldwide no longer have access at their school libraries to celebrated and highly recommended books that happen to talk about LGBTQ+ people and people of color."

"HuffPost obtained an internal list of 80-something books that have been banned, or are in the process of being banned, at schools across the DoDEA system, which provides K-12 education to more than 67,000 kids in 11 countries, seven states, Guam and Puerto Rico. HuffPost isn’t providing the full list at the request of the DoDEA employee who shared it; they feared they could lose their job. But the clear theme to these books is that in one way or another, they talk about gender identity, sexuality and race."

"Still, senior DoDEA officials’ focus on rooting out books that talk about transgender people stands out the most, said this DoDEA employee. “They are really trying to deny transgender people exist,” said the employee. “It makes me physically ill.” A second DoDEA employee told HuffPost it’s clear that, in their scramble to comply with Trump’s executive orders, the agency’s leadership has had “a tendency to err far on the side of caution.” DoDEA students last month sued the agency over its book bans, arguing that it is violating their First Amendment rights. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of 12 students from six families, ranging in age from pre-K to 11th grade. All are children of active-duty U.S. service members stationed in Virginia, Kentucky, Italy or Japan."

"HuffPost previously talked to an active-duty military officer overseas with kids attending a DoDEA school. He described Trump’s anti-DEI policies as a constant source of stress and fear for people around him, including at home: His spouse is a DoDEA teacher and he has LGBTQ+ children. Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ+ kids and transgender service members “hits home in so many ways,” said the officer. “It’s dehumanizing.” Members of Congress previously wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, urging him to stop to the “Orwellian book purges” within DoDEA schools. “We write to express our grave concern about the escalating censorship taking place in schools run by the Department of Defense,” reads a March letter to Hegseth from more than two dozen lawmakers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “You are plainly violating the constitutional rights of DoD families,” they wrote. A Defense Department spokesperson on Thursday declined comment on the lawmakers’ letter, saying only, “As with all congressional correspondence, we will respond directly to its authors.”"

"The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) today sent a letter to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) urging them to restore to female athletes the records, titles, awards, and recognitions misappropriated by biological males competing in female categories. The Department has called on the NCAA and NFHS to continue the progress made in recent days and strip the records, titles, awards, and recognitions wrongfully credited to the biological males who unfairly competed against girls and women in athletics. Correcting the record is entirely consistent with the NCAA’s new policy intended to preclude males from competing in women’s sports. “Because of President Trump’s bold leadership, men will no longer be allowed to compete in women’s sports regardless of how they identify, and the NCAA has correctly changed its tune on its discriminatory practices against female athletes,” said Candice Jackson, Deputy General Counsel. “The next necessary step is to restore athletic records to women who have for years been devalued, ignored, and forced to watch men steal their accolades. The Trump Education Department will do everything in our power to right this wrong and champion the hard-earned accomplishments of past, current, and future female collegiate athletes.”"

"The Department’s letter follows the NCAA’s policy change to “align NCAA policy” with President Trump’s Executive Order Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports. That Order set forth "the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports...as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” Last week, the Department also launched investigations into two educational institutions and an athletic association where violations of Title IX have been reported. Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments provides that no student “shall on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under” any federally funded education program or activity. As such, K-12 school districts, colleges, and athletics associations are strongly encouraged to keep factually accurate athletics records and to make corrections where male athletes were allowed to erase female records during the Biden administration."

"A part of a US national suicide prevention hotline that caters for LGBTQ young people says it will soon close, after the Trump administration cut its funding. The administration has accused the service of "radical gender ideology". It says it will still fund the wider 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline - of which the LGBTQ youth option is one part - and that all callers will receive "compassion and help". The Trevor Project, an organisation that helped to run the LGBTQ option, said the decision would have a harmful impact on vulnerable young people. "Suicide prevention is about people, not politics," said Jaymes Black, the organisation's CEO. He said his service had been told to close within 30 days. "The administration's decision to remove a bipartisan, evidence-based service that has effectively supported a high-risk group of young people through their darkest moments is incomprehensible," Mr Black added. The decision comes during international Pride Month, which celebrates LGBTQ culture and history."

"The news also arrived ahead of a US Supreme Court decision on Tuesday that upheld the state of Tennessee's ban on transition-related healthcare for minors who identify as transgender. The general 988 Lifeline offers free mental health support via call, text, or chat. It is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a subsidiary of the US Health and Human Services Agency (HHS). Currently, LGBTQ young people can select option 3 from a call menu in order to connect with counsellors. After the changes, the remaining 988 Lifeline services would "focus on serving all help seekers", including those who previously chose to access LGBTQ youth services, SAMHSA said. But the hotline would "no longer silo LGB+ youth services", SAMHSA wrote in a statement, omitting the "T" and "Q" that refers to transgender and queer people in the LGBTQ acronym."

"Officials at HHS proposed cutting the 988 Lifeline's LGBTQ youth services last week. In a statement to NBC News at the time, an HHS spokesperson described the option as a "chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by 'counselors' without consent or knowledge of their parents". Legislation passed in 2020 by the US Congress required the 988 Lifeline to provide services and staff specifically for LGBTQ people as well as other at-risk groups like rural and Native Americans. The legislation noted that LGBTQ youth were "more than 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide than their peers, with 1 in 5 LGBTQ youth and more than 1 in 3 transgender youth reporting attempting suicide". The law received bipartisan support - including from Donald Trump, who was then serving his first presidential term, and signed the bill into law. According to the 988 Lifeline website, LGBTQ communities are "disproportionately at risk for suicide and other mental health struggles due to historic and ongoing structural violence." The Trevor Project began providing its services through the 988 Lifeline in 2022. In 2024, it served more than 231,000 crisis contacts, the organisation said in a statement. It says it will continue to provide its own independent services."

"The decision to eliminate the 988 Lifeline's designated LGBTQ youth option comes amid Trump's push to curtail services, support, and access for transgender people across the federal government. He has pushed to end diversity, equity, and inclusion policies (DEI) within the federal government, arguing that such programmes are themselves discriminatory. The president has also ordered the removal of transgender servicemembers from the US military and issued an executive order that the US would only recognise two sexes – male and female. The US Department of State also announced it would no longer allow applicants to choose "X" as their gender on US passports. Instead, transgender individuals must choose "male" or "female" corresponding to their sex assigned at birth."

"Trump administration health officials announced Thursday that the federal government will block transgender care to children by targeting hospitals and doctors that provide it. New proposed rules would prohibit hospitals from participating in Medicare and Medicaid if they provide care such as puberty blockers and surgeries for transgender minors, and would prevent federal coverage of such treatments. “These procedures fail to meet professionally recognized standards of care,” US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, calling many types of transgender care “malpractice.” “Medical professionals or entities providing sex-rejecting procedures to children are out of compliance with these standards of health care.” Medical groups denounced the announcements, saying they intrude on physician-patient relationships and jeopardize care for everyone. “Allowing the government to determine which patient groups deserve care sets a dangerous precedent, and children and families will bear the consequences,” said Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics."

"“Patients, their families, and their physicians – not politicians or government officials – should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them. The government’s actions today make that task harder, if not impossible, for families of gender-diverse and transgender youth.” It’s the latest in a string of actions by President Donald Trump’s administration that target transgender people, including eliminating mention of trans people on federal websites, halting data collection on health issues, removing trans people from the military and suing states that allow trans athletes to play on high school sports teams. Also Thursdsay, US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said the agency is sending warning letters to 12 makers and sellers of breast binders who marketed or sold the devices for treatment of gender dysphoria in children. National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya also said the research agency will end support for research into gender transition, saying, “it was junk science to begin with.”"

"HHS leaders on Thursday cited their own review of evidence and reports from other countries, many of which have faced sharp criticism for drawing sweeping conclusions with little or poor evidence. Health officials said they expect to emphasize psychosocial assessment and support for transgender youth, including “compassionate, developmentally appropriate counseling.” But they acknowledged that there are a limited number of mental health care providers available. Gender identity care, which is sometimes called gender-affirming care, is a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one a clinician assigned them at birth, based mostly on anatomic characteristics – to the gender by which they identify. It can include mental health care or age-appropriate medical care such as hormone treatments, puberty blockers, gynecologic and urologic care and reproductive treatments. Major mainstream medical associations – including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry – have supported such care and agree that it’s the gold standard of clinically appropriate care that can provide lifesaving treatment for children and adults. Professional medical organizations do not recommend surgery for children as a part of care, and research shows that it’s rare among transgender or gender-diverse teens."

"The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that it will challenge the administration’s rules in court. “These gratuitous proposals are cruel and unconstitutional attacks on the rights of transgender youth and their families,” Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Rights Project, said in a statement. Kennedy said Thursday that the administration is confident it’s approach will pass court challenges. “If people sue us, they’re welcome to,” he said. The HHS announcement came just after the House passed a bill that could imprison health care providers for providing trans care for minors. The bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, could imprison doctors who provide care such as surgeries or puberty blockers for up to 10 years. It’s unclear whether the GOP-led Senate will take up the measure, though it is unlikely it would get enough Democratic support to pass out of that chamber."

"Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military. Gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service, and the use of public monies for transgender surgeries or to facilitate abortion for servicemembers should be ended."

"What would you do if your government identification suddenly ceased to exist? In the state of Kansas last month, hundreds of residents received a notice that their driver’s licenses had been revoked. They hadn’t done anything wrong to warrant this action – except change their gender identity. Under a new state law that was passed on Feb. 26, Kansans are now forced to have their documentation reflect their biological sex at birth. As a result, the trans community in Kansas has been left reeling. Forcing trans individuals to renounce their own gender identity is deeply wrong, and it reflects a wider assault on trans rights in the U.S. that serves to dehumanize and minimize their existence. To understand the law’s harmful impact, we must dig deeper into the details. Known as S.B. 244, it orders that gender markers on a driver’s license or birth certificate must reflect someone’s assigned sex at birth. Previously, Kansas allowed people to change their gender on government IDs. S.B. 244, however, instantly changed that rule as soon as it became law, affecting about 1700 people in the state. It’s also worth mentioning that Kansas bills usually become law on July 1, in the year that they are passed, but this one was specifically ordered to take effect just a few days after it was signed. The application of the law was so sudden that those affected had to have friends or family drive them to the DMV so that they could get new licenses. If they had tried to drive themselves, they would have already risked getting pulled over."

"The law also prohibits trans people from using bathrooms in public places according to their preferred gender identity and allows citizens to sue for up to $1000 in damages if they believe someone has violated these rules. According to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), 20 states currently have laws that prohibit in some form the ability of trans people to enter the bathroom of their choice. With this law, Kansas has put itself near the top of these states in discriminatory severity, since it applies to all public spaces and violations represent a criminal offense. When you add in the amount people can ask for in so-called “damages,” S.B. 244 represents a particularly draconian and disgusting law. It weaponizes the government and the state’s own citizens to discriminate against trans individuals. These restrictions on trans rights have already spurred many members of the trans community to think about leaving Kansas. Those who stay are now essentially considered nonexistent until they comply, since their current gender identity has been invalidated. To Kansas, there is no such thing as transitioning anymore – only your initial biology matters. It is especially notable that the law defines gender as a person’s “biological sex at birth,” even though gender is a social construct and not biological. At the same time, while genetics cannot be altered, some aspects of one’s biological sex can change. The law’s language therefore fundamentally misunderstands the actual science and social aspects in favor of catering to anti-trans sentiment."

"Kansas’ law follows the growing efforts of the American right to restrict the rights of trans people and LGBTQ+ individuals in general. In the past few years, especially after Trump was elected to a second term, Republicans have honed in on attacking trans rights. Several Republican states, including Florida and Texas, have already passed laws prohibiting trans individuals from officially changing their gender identity in the future. Kansas is simply the first state to take a drastic step and revoke documents that were already on file. Trans people have had to deal with an increasing amount of discriminatory legislation. According to Trans Legislation Tracker, 2025 saw the highest number of anti-trans bills both considered and passed. Just through the first couple of months in 2026, 15 bills restricting trans rights have already been passed. In addition, the ACLU has tracked 489 anti-LGBTQ+ bills that are currently waiting on votes. This surge in restrictive legislation is in line with the Trump administration, which prevented transgender, intersex and nonbinary people from updating their gender designation on his first day in office. The onslaught on trans rights, both at the state and federal level, represents a concerted effort from Republicans to eliminate their legal standing. Kansas’ law should serve as a fresh reminder that the right will not stop in its attempt to roll back the protections trans individuals had just started to enjoy. By forcing trans people to go against their own identity, Kansas is throwing the weight of the state against their ability to simply live their lives comfortably. Policing bathroom use while revoking driver’s licenses and birth certificates is a clear sign that trans people are no longer welcome in the state of Kansas. If the law is allowed to stand, anti-trans discrimination and dehumanization will continue to get worse."

"[Gender transition] is a major problem. I will be actively lobbying to criminalize making severe, irreversible changes to children below the age of consent. Shame on those who advocate this! It is utterly contemptible."

"Donald Trump had recently finished a familiar riff about banning gender transition surgery for children when the former president, speaking to an audience of Evangelical voters, moved on to something new: a policy that would affect transgender adults. “I will ban all taxpayer funding for sex or gender transitions at any age,” said Trump, receiving thunderous applause at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last month. The Republican leader, who moments earlier had also pledged to reinstate a ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, paused for several seconds to soak in the crowd’s adulation. It’s the kind of moment — and the type of policy — increasingly common on the GOP presidential campaign trail this year. A Republican Party that in recent years has emphasized transgender issues related to children, teenagers and student-athletes is becoming more and more comfortable now also focusing on transgender adults, led by a field of GOP presidential candidates who, through rhetoric and policy proposal, have denounced elements of the transgender movement as a farce and sought to limit the ways in which these adults can have the medical procedures performed."

"It’s a shift led by Trump, whose proposed federal funding ban is just one of an array of policies designed to position himself as the Republican candidate most fiercely opposed to transgender rights. But the change isn’t confined to the former president’s candidacy, with many of Trump’s rivals also offering blunt assessments about the legitimacy of medical procedures that help people transition to their self-identified gender while adopting many of the former president’s own positions, including a ban on federal funds for gender transition surgery that LGBTQ advocates call a dramatic new front for the party’s anti-transgender agenda."

"In statements to McClatchyDC, the campaigns of many of the primary’s leading contenders — including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson — said they also support bans on the use of federal taxpayer money for gender transition surgeries for all ages. “Taxpayer money should not be used for transgender surgery,” said Hutchinson, who as a candidate has been generally more reluctant to embrace the sharp-elbowed culture-warrior persona of other GOP contenders. “It is an individual choice to undertake transgender surgery and it is objectionable to many taxpayers. Taxpayers should not foot the bill.” Other candidates supportive of the ban offered an even broader condemnation of all gender-reassignment surgeries as a treatment option. “It’s wrong to treat anorexia with a liposuction, just as it’s inhumane to treat a person who suffers from gender dysphoria with genital mutilation,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for Ramaswamy’s campaign, told McClatchyDC in a statement this week. “These are mental health illnesses and should be treated as such.”"

"Nathan Robinson: I don’t know how they go through their lives—and when I say they, I mean from J.K. Rowling to Ben Shapiro to Jordan Peterson to Helen Joyce to Debra Soh to Abigail Shrier. They must go through their lives trying to avoid having serious conversations with trans people. That’s the only way you could come up with this idea that there is a denial of biology. It’s so strange. Of all the people who deny human biology, trans people are not in that group. Nobody has a better understanding of what causes the body to be the way it is and the effects of hormones on the body. Nobody thinks about that more. There’s not a single biological fact that is being in any way denied by trans people. Julia Serano: Yeah. I would love to be at a point where—and obviously, we’ve taken this kind of backlash turn—we realize that trans people provide a lot of insight for everyday people about gender. People will debate the differences between the sexes, and it’s like, trans people have written about our experiences with, say, hormonal transitioning. And the answer is that yeah, there are very real differences. Experiences may vary. But again, humans are these overlapping bell curves. We, as trans people, have experience being members of both the male and female persuasions, and that relates to both physical and social aspects of gender. Having moved through the world as male and as female, we have very interesting experiences. And we have moved through the world as non-binary and have been read different ways and have experienced very real double standards. A lot of these anti-trans people purport to be feminists. I’m not going to say they aren’t feminists, but their feminism seems a bit off to me. We can talk at great length about how sexist double standards are very real things—if you would stop fighting us. There are a lot of feminists who appreciate trans people’s insights and perspectives into these issues. But this particular group of people, some of whom consider themselves to be feminists, just really don’t want to have that conversation. They only want to have one conversation, and it’s one where trans people don’t get to speak and where it ends with us being shown the door."

"The CDC should immediately end its collection of data on gender identity, which legitimizes the unscientific notion that men can become women (and vice versa) and encourages the phenomenon of ever-multiplying subjective identities."

"It’s amazing how strongly people feel about that. You see I’m talking about cutting taxes, people go like that. I talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy. Who would have thought? Five years ago, you didn’t know what the hell it was."

"Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly 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, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself. This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept. Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male."

"It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality."

"“Gender ideology” replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true. Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body."

"Agencies shall 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. Agency forms that require an individual’s sex shall list male or female, and shall not request gender identity. Agencies shall take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology."

"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Policy and Purpose. Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end. Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding. Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization. Accordingly, it is 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, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures."

"The phrase “chemical and surgical mutilation” means the use of puberty blockers, including GnRH agonists and other interventions, to delay the onset or progression of normally timed puberty in an individual who does not identify as his or her sex; the use of sex hormones, such as androgen blockers, estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone, to align an individual’s physical appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex; and surgical procedures that attempt to transform an individual’s physical appearance to align with an identity that differs from his or her sex or that attempt to alter or remove an individual’s sexual organs to minimize or destroy their natural biological functions. This phrase sometimes is referred to as “gender affirming care.”"

"Sec. 3. Ending Reliance on Junk Science. (a) The blatant harm done to children by chemical and surgical mutilation cloaks itself in medical necessity, spurred by guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which lacks scientific integrity. In light of the scientific concerns with the WPATH guidance: (i) agencies shall rescind or amend all policies that rely on WPATH guidance, including WPATH’s “Standards of Care Version 8”; and (ii) within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) shall publish a review of the existing literature on best practices for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion. (b) The Secretary of HHS, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, shall use all available methods to increase the quality of data to guide practices for improving the health of minors with gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion, or who otherwise seek chemical or surgical mutilation."

"Sec. 4. Defunding Chemical and Surgical Mutilation. The head of each executive department or agency (agency) that provides research or education grants to medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals, shall, consistent with applicable law and in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, immediately take appropriate steps to ensure that institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children."

"Sec. 6. TRICARE. The Department of Defense provides health insurance, through TRICARE, to nearly 2 million individuals under the age of 18. As appropriate and consistent with applicable law, the Secretary of Defense shall commence a rulemaking or sub-regulatory action to exclude chemical and surgical mutilation of children from TRICARE coverage and amend the TRICARE provider handbook to exclude chemical and surgical mutilation of children."

"Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority. For example, steering students toward surgical and chemical mutilation without parental consent or involvement or allowing males access to private spaces designated for females may contravene Federal laws that protect parental rights, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), and sex-based equality and opportunity, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX). Similarly, demanding acquiescence to “White Privilege” or “unconscious bias,” actually promotes racial discrimination and undermines national unity."

"Within 90 days of the date of this order, to advise the President in formulating future policy, the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall provide an Ending Indoctrination Strategy to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, containing recommendations and a plan for: (i) eliminating Federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology (ii) protecting parental rights, pursuant to FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 1232g, and the PPRA, 20 U.S.C. 1232h, with respect to any K-12 policies or conduct implicated by the purpose and policy of this order. (b) The Ending Indoctrination Strategy submitted under subsection (a) of this section shall contain a summary and analysis of the following: (i) All Federal funding sources and streams, including grants or contracts, that directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology: (A) in K-12 curriculum, instruction, programs, or activities; or (B) in K-12 teacher education, certification, licensing, employment, or training; (ii) Each agency’s process to prevent or rescind Federal funds, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, from being used by an ESA, SEA, LEA, elementary school, or secondary school to directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology in: (A) K-12 curriculum, instruction, programs, or activities; or (B) K-12 teacher certification, licensing, employment, or training; (iii) Each agency’s process to prevent or rescind Federal funds, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, from being used by an ESA, SEA, LEA, elementary school, or secondary school to directly or indirectly support or subsidize the social transition of a minor student, including through school staff or teachers or through deliberately concealing the minor’s social transition from the minor’s parents."

"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to protect opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Policy and Purpose. In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports. This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports. Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy. It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth."

"The Secretary of State, including through the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ Sports Diplomacy Division and the Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, shall: (i) rescind support for and participation in people-to-people sports exchanges or other sports programs within which the relevant female sports category is based on identity and not sex"

"The Secretary of State shall use all appropriate and available measures to see that the International Olympic Committee amends the standards governing Olympic sporting events to promote fairness, safety, and the best interests of female athletes by ensuring that eligibility for participation in women’s sporting events is determined according to sex and not gender identity or testosterone reduction."

"The U.S. Department of Education urged the NCAA and the NFHS on Tuesday to restore female athletes' records and awards that were "wrongfully erased" by biological males, who "unfairly competed" in women's sports. The letter, sent to the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Federation of State High School Associations, comes one week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to ban transgender women from competing in women's sports "as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity and truth." The NCAA updated its policies Thursday to comply with the order and limit "competition in women's sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only." The Education Department called restoring female athletes' records the "next necessary step." "The next necessary step is to restore athletic records to women who have for years been devalued, ignored and forced to watch men steal their accolades," said Candice Jackson, deputy general counsel. "The Trump Education Department will do everything in our power to right this wrong and champion the hard-earned accomplishments of past, current and future female collegiate athletes.""

"As of Thursday, transgender people in Kansas whose driver’s licenses do not reflect their sex assigned at birth are breaking the law if they drive, after the Republican-controlled legislature stripped them of previously valid credentials by overriding Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a sweeping new measure. More than 1,500 residents are affected, and the change took effect immediately with no grace period. “This is what fascism looks like," the Human Rights Campaign said in a post on Instagram. The letters notifying trans residents of the move are blunt, bureaucratic, and devastating in their implications. “If you have received this notice,” the Kansas Division of Vehicles tells transgender residents, “your current Kansas credential will no longer be valid.”"

"According to Reuters, the change affects transgender residents whose gender markers on driver’s licenses and birth certificates had previously been corrected. Kansas officials have estimated roughly 1,700 driver’s licenses and a similar number of birth certificates are impacted, according to the Kansas City Star. The law also bars future changes to gender markers on those documents and requires residents to pay for replacement credentials. Kansas now stands apart nationally. While several GOP-controlled states have blocked future updates to gender markers, Kansas is retroactively voiding documents already issued in a rare and expansive step that effectively erases prior legal recognition. Kansas’s current stance marks a dramatic reversal from where the state stood just seven years ago. In June 2019, after a federal lawsuit, Kansas agreed to allow transgender residents to update the sex listed on their birth certificates to match their gender identity. That policy was one of the last in a series of incremental legal recognitions of transgender rights in the state before subsequent litigation and Republican-led legislation began rolling it back."

"The law extends beyond identification cards. It requires transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms in public buildings that correspond to their sex assigned at birth. “Instead of meeting the needs of their constituents, Kansas lawmakers have prioritized cruelty,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said after the legislation’s passage. For many residents, the consequences are immediate and practical. A driver’s license is not merely permission to operate a vehicle; it is a key to employment, housing, air travel, and voter participation. Kansas requires photo identification to vote, meaning the sudden invalidation of IDs could disrupt civic participation. The policy also places people in legal limbo. Under Kansas law, driving without a valid license is a misdemeanor that can carry fines or possible jail time. The state’s own letter emphasizes that filing an appeal “will not preserve the validity of your current credential and associated driving authority.” For transgender Kansans now scrambling to replace essential documents, the inconvenience is anything but abstract. “We apologize for the inconvenience this causes you,” it concludes."

"Kansas is one of five states to prohibit trans people from changing the gender marker on their licenses, but it is the first to pass a law that retroactively cancels licenses that were already changed. The law also invalidated birth certificates for those who updated their gender markers. Hundreds of trans drivers already received letters from the state informing them their documents were “invalid immediately” and they “may be subject to additional penalties” if they continue to drive, unless they surrender the license to the Kansas Division of Vehicles and receive a new one with their birth sex. “I’m pretty heartbroken,” said Jaelynn Abegg, a 41-year-old trans woman living in Wichita who received a letter. She said she will not turn in her license and plans to move this month to another state. “It is a continuation of the message that the Legislature has been sending out for years now, and that is that transgender people are not welcome in Kansas,” she said. Two anonymous trans residents sued Kansas last month, arguing that the law violates state protections for personal autonomy, privacy, equality, due process and freedom of speech. On Tuesday, Douglas County District Judge James McCabria declined to grant a temporary restraining order against the law while the case proceeds. McCabria wrote in his decision that there isn't enough evidence to show that trans people will face harassment and discrimination if they have to use bathrooms or show IDs that conflict with their gender identities."

"Over the last five years, dozens of states have considered bills targeting transgender people, but the majority of those have targeted people’s ability to play on school sports teams that align with their gender identities and minors’ access to transition-related care. In the last few years, state and federal policies have shifted to focus on changing legal definitions of sex and restricting access to updated identity documents. Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank that tracks legislation, described these broader laws as “gender regulation laws” that attack the fundamental rights and identity of trans people. “The point all along for the people pushing these bills and these attacks has been to single out transgender people and create a license to discriminate against transgender people and remove them from public life,” he said. “In effect, trying to get them to stop being transgender.”"

"Kansas’ law took effect immediately after it was published in the register Feb. 26. A spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Revenue told the Kansas Reflector that the law invalidated about 1,700 licenses. The department did not respond to a request for comment. During the court hearing Friday, Kobach said the department had so far sent letters to 275 Kansans and 138 had received new licenses. Andrea Ellis, a 34-year-old trans woman living in Wellington, said she received a letter Wednesday even though she never changed the gender marker on her license — she only legally changed her name on it in December. She drove to the DMV the next day, where she said staff were confused about what to do and said her license had a “flag” on it. They cut the corner off her license and gave her a temporary one. But later that day, they called her and said she had to return to the DMV because they made an error. When she went back, she said they gave her another temporary license that looked the same as the first. “They claim that it was thought out, and everything else, but there was no grace period unlike any other kind of rollout program,” Ellis said. “There was no plan whatsoever.”"