Trump signs executive order declaring there are only two biological sexes, halting diversity plans

President Donald Trump on Monday plans to sign an executive order declaring that the U.S. government will recognize only two genders, male and female, and end “aggressive and wasteful” diversity, equity and inclusion programs within federal agencies, according to senior White House officials. .

Officials framed both orders as part of the Trump administration's broader “restoring sanity” agenda. An incoming official detailed the orders in a phone call Monday before Trump was sworn in.

The official described the gender order as part of a policy to “protect women from gender ideological extremism and restore biological truth to the federal government.”

The order seeks to require the federal government to use the word “sex” instead of “gender,” and directs the Departments of State and Homeland Security to “ensure that official government documents, including passports and visas, accurately reflect gender.”

In 2022, the Biden administration will allow U.S. citizens to choose a neutral “X” as a mark on their passports.

The order would also prevent taxpayer funds from being used for transgender health care and increase the “privacy of private spaces” in facilities such as prisons, immigration shelters and rape shelters.

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Trump campaigned on rolling back protections for transgender and non-binary people and highlighted the issue in television ads, including frequent ones in key battleground states like Pennsylvania. “Kamala is for them/them. President Trump is for you,” the most eye-catching ad said.

The second order, detailed by White House officials, aims to end “aggressive and wasteful government DEI programs and preferences” within the federal government.

The official said the new administration will hold monthly meetings with undersecretaries from key agencies to “assess what types of DEI programs still discriminate against Americans and identify ways to end them.”

The official said the new administration intends to “dismantle the DEI bureaucracy,” particularly environmental justice programs and equity-related grants.

The official said it was “very appropriate” to announce the order on Martin Luther King Jr. Day because “this order is about returning to the promise and hope held by civil rights defenders that one day all Americans could Treat them based on their character, not the color of their skin.”

In recent years, Trump and conservatives have attacked DEI initiatives across American society, calling them discriminatory.

Trump mentioned the orders in his inaugural address on Monday afternoon, saying in part that his administration would resist efforts to “incorporate the social engineering of race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.” He added that his government would “create a color-blind, merit-based society.”

Proponents of DEI in American society argue that such initiatives are critical to increasing racial and social inclusion in companies, schools, government agencies, and other institutions.

In the weeks before Trump returned to power, major companies including Meta, McDonald's and Walmart announced they would end some or all of their diversity practices.

Jin Hee Lee, director of strategic initiatives at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said there are currently big questions about which DEI programs will be terminated under Trump's order. But she said the organization was prepared to take any action to prevent discrimination, including challenging the order in court.

Lee said pushing to ban “anything that involves addressing inequality” would be a “real setback for progress on racial justice.”

She added that “any incoming president can set policy for the federal government,” but it would be troubling if employers or governments were allowed to “discriminate on the basis of race or sex.”

LGBTQ legal advocates react

Jennifer C. Pizer, chief legal officer of Lambda Legal, a civil rights group that files lawsuits on behalf of LGBTQ Americans, said she hopes her organization and others will sue the administration over the executive action.

“The president cannot, with the stroke of a pen, change the reality of who people are and the fact that we exist as a community of people,” Pizer said. “We have equal rights to protections, just like everyone else.”

Another lawyer and legal expert for the LGBTQ community said that while Trump's executive order on gender identity will certainly be challenged in court, the government can enforce it and make immediate changes in some cases.

The expert, who asked that their names not be published so they could speak candidly about the executive order, noted that prisons, immigration shelters and rape shelters could immediately begin moving transgender people into spaces that match their birth gender, while Not their gender identity. This means, for example, that a trans woman serving time in a women's prison may be transferred to a men's prison at short notice.

The lawyer also said transgender Americans — especially those with an X as a gender marker on federal documents such as passports — should exercise caution when leaving the U.S. because they may face difficulties re-entering the country, Maybe even detained by border agents.

If Customs and Border Protection agents are unable to enter a person's X gender marker into their system to allow that person to return to the United States, that could mean the person will remain in Customs and Border Protection custody “until they can cooperate with the State Department.” “Get a backup ID,” the lawyer said.

Still, some changes — such as how agencies handle health care for transgender Americans, or how the Department of Housing and Urban Development protects transgender tenants from landlord evictions — may take longer to implement because agencies There is a process that has to go through, and changing the rules of a governing body can take months or even years.

In some cases, the legal expert said, “agencies need time to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking, review comments (as part of their legal obligations) and respond to any deficiencies, and then issue a final rule.”

In the event of an anticipated legal challenge to an executive order, courts can block enforcement of the order by issuing an injunction. But it's also possible that courts will decide to allow the order as it faces challenges, including in the Supreme Court, which could side with the Trump administration.