Section 1. Purpose. 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.
Trump doesn’t actually give a rat’s ass about any of that. He would never in a million years be able to put it into those words. But someone did, and it’s about god damn time.
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.
Kind of like the way Trump’s sense of self is unmoored from a whole range of kinds of facts.
But Trump aside, this swapping of bio reality for daydreams about the self is one of the things I hate most about gender ideology. It is inevitably a narcissistic approach to life, and narcissism is bad. Just look at Trump, for one.
Our subjective senses of self are of interest only to ourselves, and it’s bad and wrong to try to force other people to pay attention to it.
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.
How did that “my” get in there?! Oh right, this is supposed to be in Trump’s voice.
(f) “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.
(g) “Gender identity” reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.
Good stuff.
Comments
23 responses to “The one silver lining”
Wow.
This is remarkably clear, definite, and articulate. It is out of character for political speech in general, and way out of character for the people in Trump’s orbit. I wonder who wrote it?
This never should have been a political issue. If anything, the ideology is authoritarian, and that goes against liberal values. The trans cult has no political home, and it can’t stand alone as it’s own movement. It must feed off of other categories to survive, first LGB, then the political left, and most recently Feminism. It’s inherently parasitic. Good to see people taking a stand.
No other modern, secular political movement that I know of, had “No Debate” as a fixed part of its ideology.
https://www.troubleandstrife.org/new-articles/you-are-killing-me/
It is a sign of how much progressive support for free speech had declined by the 2010s that the gender ideology movement was able to advocate and implement what were, by any standard, extremist measures, without meeting significant criticism from the political centre and the political left.
The use of dangerously untested drugs on minors is a case in point. Anyone who raised even the most moderate and polite criticism was thus shouted down as a “bigot” who wanted “trans children to die”, and hence had no right to disagree with gender ideology.
There are two sad things about this. The first is that this has now absolutely solidified the trans issue as part of the culture war. The arguments that we here consider to be clear, articulate, obvious, and defensible will now be discounted as mere MAGA hateful rhetoric and not worthy of consideration, debate or further argument. as others say above, this should never have become a political issue.
The other terribly sad thing is that this administration has made clear that actions against trans issues isn’t the end of the matter. They will be extending similar policies and actions against gay and lesbian people, endeavouring to role back hard won rights that took decades to achieve. whether they will succeed I don’t know, but without doubt there will be pain and damage to lives as a result.
And yet the EO itself could have been written by any [pre-trans-ideology] feminist. It doesn’t come across as trumpish thinking at all.
In other words they’ll have to find a whole different line of argument, a whole different kind of argument, to find reasons to extend similar policies and actions against gay and lesbian people.
And in fact it may just not be the case. Trump doesn’t have any reason to bite the LGB. I’m not convinced he will.
As we say in Australia, Yeah, yeah, sure Ted.
Which is why I have today signed executive orders to remove the USA from the Paris Accords and the World Health Organization. We already know the planet is boiling and thus creating new pathogens, so stop telling us what we already know.
so we will ensure that no woman ever has to go through having an abortion, that we will remove all references to abortion and contraception in medical settings, and defund any public body that even hints there are choices in reproduction. Women will be returned to their rightful place as brood mares, cleaners, and cooks.
Careful what you wish for.
@Rob I predicted that here about 3-4 months back. The Rethuglicans will not be happy until every poof is back in the closet and every dyke has been correctively raped.
I’m OK, I’m white, hetero, and old, but if I was Black or Hispanic and Gay or Lesbian, I’d be getting quite worried. And all those L & G groups that once fought ceaselessly for G & L rights have been neutered by the T.
I know, I know, I’m not saying ooh look Trump turns out to be ok. Whoever wrote this is ok for the purposes of writing this, that’s all I’m saying. They found someone who knows what’s what to write it. I don’t know how, but they did.
Well, I’ll be more than happy to be proved wrong. The executive order banning use of DEI considerations in Federal hiring (and contracting based on information prior to the release of the EO) doesn’t stop at race and trans, it extends to sexual orientation. Others in the transition team, including Hegseth (who may or may not be confirmed) have made clear they think gay people should be banned from service in the military. There’s no rational reason for doing so of course. Red States, people in his transition team, and at least some SCOTUS Justices have made clear they will try and remove many of the rights of gay people to marry and other recently won rights. I guess they next couple of years will tell.
I’m with Rob and the Rev; that silver lining? It’s actually mercury.
If trans was your main thing, sure you got that, but is a world where you have to tolerate the trannies’ ridiculous antics one that’s worse than, well, what we’re getting. Trans has been dealt a deathblow, how many are going to be doing what GLAAD, ERC, the ACLU, and Stonewall didn’t do and close up shop?
There have been a number of bills introduced in conservative states (including here in Alabama) that were aimed at fighting gender ideology. Most of the ones I have seen are carefully and intelligently written, with few or no religious appeals. This is in contrast with various other bills that are attempts to regulate abortion or the rights of gay people or similar right-wing hot-button issues. I suspect that the right-wing think tanks like the Federalist Society or ALEC have realized they have a better chance with these bills if they use language and arguments already coming from left-wing opponents of gender ideology; perhaps with a goal of dividing the left, perhaps as an effort to get the camel’s nose into the tent, perhaps just pragmatically.
The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) takes credit for being the architect of model legislation used in Executive Order 14166 that Trump signed yesterday about the definition of ‘sex’ in the Federal government:
Independent Women — the Original Champion of Legislation to Define ‘Woman’ — Applauds President Trump’s Day One Executive Order to Restore Biological Reality
Ahhh that explains it. Thanks Dave.
The executive order was written by a woman, Republican lawyer May Mailman.
I think it’s very unlikely that the Trump administration will start “coming after” the LGB. Not only would the arguments be different, but he had The Village People perform at the inauguration. Can’t get much gayer than that.
[…] a comment by Dave Ricks on The one silver […]
Why yes Coel, the Village People definitely validate the natcons’ continued commitment to maintaining the status quo vis a vis gay rights. That’s not a facile argument at all…
BKiSA, Coel?
How many times do I have to say I’m not claiming this means Trump is ok? I’m just saying it’s a good thing. It is a good thing, and Trump is still a horror. I have not become a Trump fan. That will never happen.
I’m not especially fond of the order’s vague references to “gender ideology,” but overall it is fairly well-written, clear and coherent.
But as other commenters have noted, to have this coming from the Trump administration is a HUGE blow to the progressive-minded opposition to gender identity, and will probably prove quite damaging. It will worsen conflation with the far-right conservative mindset and facilitate dismissal even more; it will discourage people from speaking up for fear of being associated with the retrograde ideology of the far right, and this culling will only worsen as less and less leftist and centrist figures remain vocal; and of course it will probably sell a number of people over to Trump, which will also feed into the issue. Over the long term, I wouldn’t be surprised if this Executive Order did more harm than good.
I see another EO has dropped – this one targeting DEI and Environmental Justice in both the Federal Government and private sector including education nd healthcare. I don’t have the EO number yet, but the source was Chris Geidner. It revokes the following previous EOs:
It then moves on to discussing ways in which private business and education can be forced to do the same. Given how big business seems determined to cave to Trump, I suspect that will not be too hard to achieve.
I have to say I agree with Rob. At this point, this issue has become a ‘pick your side in the culture war’ matter. Disagreeing that men should be able to declare themselves women will be in the same category as border issues, pardons etc. If and when government turns, it will snap back and be seen as inevitable justice…until the next time government changes.
This was expected, but it’s still frustrating to read:
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/22/trump-anti-trans-gender-executive-order/
Second sentence begins “The order aimed at eradicating trans and gender-nonconforming people” – ffs.