Celebrities React to Trump Admin Moving to Exclude Transgender People from Civil Rights Protections
The Trump administration is moving to exclude transgender people from civil rights protections - defining gender as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with https://t.co/gfumft2fgt
- The New York Times (@nytimes) October 21, 2018
- The NYT has received a memo alerting them that the Trump administration may be looking to narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by sex at birth, which would be a drastic move to roll back federal civil rights protections for transgender people - calling on the Departments of Justice, Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor to adopt their new position.
- The Department of Health and Human Services is leading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimiantion in educaiton programs that receive financial assistance from the government. The department argues in its memo obtained by the NYT that key government agencies need to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency's definition would define gender determined by sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and any dispute would have to be clarified using genetic testing.
- Director of Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Sercies, Roger Severino, has declined to answer detailed questions about the memo to the NYT or his role in revising the definition of gender. Mr. Severino, while working as the head of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, was among the conservatives who blanched at the Obama administration’s expansion of sex to include gender identity, which he called “radical gender ideology.” In one commentary piece, he called the policies a “culmination of a series of unilateral, and frequently lawless, administration attempts to impose a new definition of what it means to be a man or a woman on the entire nation.”
- This would be a roll back on the Obama administration's recognition of gender identity. The Trump administration's move would lead to excluding many of the civil rights protections offered to transgender people that were formed under the last administraiton, already having barred transgender people from the military and challenged civil rights protections for trans people under national health care services and laws. The administraiton even tried to remove questions about gender identity from the survey for the 2020 census. One of the Trump administration’s first decisive policy acts was the rescission by the Education and Justice Departments of Obama administration guidelines that offered protection for trans students who wanted to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.
- “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposes in the memo, which was written, drafted and has been circulating since spring of 2017. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.” Officials inside the department admit the redefiniton was advised by a court order, referring to the rulings of Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth, Tex., a George W. Bush appointee who has held that “Congress did not understand ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity.’” In their memo, health and human services officials wrote that “courts and plaintiffs are racing to get decisions” ahead of any rule-making, because of the lack of a stand-alone definition. “Courts and the previous administration took advantage of this circumstance to include gender identity and sexual orientation in a multitude of agencies, and under a multitude of laws,” the memo states. Doing so “led to confusion and negative policy consequences in health care, education and other federal contexts.”
- For the last year, health and human services have been privately arguing that the term “sex” was never meant to include gender identity or even homosexuality, and that the lack of clarity allowed the Obama administration to include those things lead to wrongfully extending civil rights protections to people who should not have them. The Department still has much to decide on how this redefiniton would affect how schools would be required to codify gender, including sports programs and classes.
- Civil rights groups have been meeting with federal courts in recent weeks to fight this new definition, but may have little luck based on an October 2017 memo from Jeff Sessions, sent to agencies clarifying that civil rights protections may not extend to "gender identity, per se." Harper Jean Tobin, the policy director of advocacy group the National Center for Transgender Equality, called the maneuvering “an extremely aggressive legal position that is inconsistent with dozens of federal court decisions.” Ms. Lhamon of the Obama Education Department said the proposed definition “quite simply negates the humanity of people.”
This is pure evil. Get your friends together and vote like our lives depend on it. Because they do. https://t.co/mri7fM62Dh
- billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 21, 2018
We CANNOT let this happen! https://t.co/wZOcAWuc8U
Please please PLEASE VOTE! Check your registration. Vote early if you can. Bring your friends to the polls! November 6 is our chance to save lives
- Bex Taylor-Klaus, but spoopier (@IBexWeBex) October 21, 2018
How much more awfulness can we take? Vote. Them. Out. https://t.co/Onl0nMksH7
- Paul Feig (@paulfeig) October 21, 2018
I don’t event know what to say to this... https://t.co/DO9T9qYsOp
- Laura Jane Grace (@LauraJaneGrace) October 21, 2018
Trump administration attempting to delete trans and gender non conforming identities. Thank you @Peppermint247 for sharing this nightmare story. https://t.co/KwRWtD8iUA
- Miz Cracker (@miz_cracker) October 21, 2018
I feel sick to my stomach and depressed, scared, angry, exhausted https://t.co/DO9T9qYsOp
- Laura Jane Grace (@LauraJaneGrace) October 21, 2018
Bitch, please. Don’t get distracted folks. This administration is about to get shut down.https://t.co/qTeg2TUSEg
- Angelica Ross (@angelicaross) October 21, 2018
I woke to this. I'm honestly terrified. Basically TRUMP asked every gov agency define sex as only man or woman NOT Changable. only birth sex will be valid. disputes to be settled by genetic tests. He's already put people in charge who will approve this.https://t.co/pMDm3hzD1Z
- Peppermint (@Peppermint247) October 21, 2018
If you were wondering how to be an ally to trans people, here's a great opportunity: Do not allow for the nationwide legalized erasure of Transgender identities. C'mon cis people. https://t.co/ULN7LOl951
- Shakina (@Shakeenz) October 21, 2018
This is so disturbing and wrong https://t.co/EBlHQ5rrr4
- Lauren Lapkus 🍰 (@laurenlapkus) October 21, 2018
We must not give up the fight. But in the face of this affront on my existence and the existence of my community I choose love not fear. We exist and always have.
Trump Administration Eyes Defining Transgender Out of Existence https://t.co/G4rKB1mVfe
- Laverne Cox (@Lavernecox) October 21, 2018
Trump Administration Eyes Defining Transgender Out of Existence via @NYTimes
Fk These Ppl.Will MY SON Be Sent To INTERNMENT CAMP 2 Live with LATINO Children,& Be Kept In Cages in Places where🇺🇸Cant See Them.THIS IS”HIS CODE”4,..MAKE THEM DISAPPEAR #MBS https://t.co/UrXYSo5vK5
- Cher (@cher) October 21, 2018
I can’t begin to express the rage I feel toward an administration that is trying to redefine me out of existence. Just another gift for his small minded base, terrified of the diversity that has always made America exceptional! #Vote https://t.co/OrAPEnaK9r
- Chaz Bono (@ChazBono) October 21, 2018
Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Beyond that, they're also human beings worthy of respect, dignity, and legal protection, as are we all. Pass it on. https://t.co/QvaTOp0gB3
- Jennifer Wright (@JenAshleyWright) October 21, 2018
f*ck. this.
👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
(thinking of another finger emoji, too)https://t.co/krCgbSjHqk
- Monica Big Mac Ditzy Bimbo That Woman Lewinsky (@MonicaLewinsky) October 21, 2018
The Trump Administration “Eyes Defining Transgender Out of Existence,” at a moment when transgender Americans face high levels of discrimination and violence. Outrageous and wrong to lessen protections and attempt to deny equal humanity: https://t.co/KsWxnvQpPG
- Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) October 21, 2018
What vicious, calculating hatemongers these people are. May they all suffer the pain they seek to inflict on others. https://t.co/ZogD7OJ2Sy
- Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) October 21, 2018
The cruelty of this is remarkable. We all need to oppose it. It's important. https://t.co/wH5ii1rBx0
- Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) October 21, 2018
Singling out and stigmatizing your transgender constituents isn’t just the antithesis of constituent service; it’s dangerous and gets us killed.
I shouldn’t have to have more faith in @LambdaLegal than the POTUS to prevent this horror show but here we are.https://t.co/m6JRdeRhl7
- Danica Roem (@pwcdanica) October 21, 2018
In addition to the vehement transphobia on the right, this is the product of the left’s failure to mobilize around trans people and our bodies and humanity. https://t.co/rgBrSCtLaV
- Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) October 21, 2018
This headline is inaccurate; the Trump administration is trying to create the illusion that trans people don't exist. Transgender people have always and will continue to exist as long as people exist. https://t.co/wX6NwvFupB
- Meredith Talusan❄️ (@1demerith) October 21, 2018
ONTD, who has gotta go first? In your humble opinion.
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