Donald Trump's horrific plan for transgender people

The Trump campaign has a list of 12 policies that will harm trans people in the US severely.

Warning: The content of this article may be traumatizing for trans people living in the US.

Now that Trump as won the US presidential election as well as the Senate, LGBTQ people around the country need to prepare for a long and painful battle.

During the campaign Trump made it perfectly clear what he wants to as far as transgender protections and health services are concerned.

The following summary is based on a presentation made by the Trump Vance campaign. We have rewritten the most offensive language.

The new Trump administration will:

1. Revoke current policies that support gender-affirming treatments for minors, including puberty blockers and surgeries.

2. Issue an executive order to end federal agency support for programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.

3. Prohibit the use of federal funds to promote or cover the cost of gender-affirming procedures.

4. Introduce legislation to ban gender affirming procedures on children nationwide.

5. Penalize healthcare providers involved in these procedures by removing them from Medicaid and Medicare compliance.

6. Support legal avenues for individuals to sue medical professionals who have performed gender-affirming procedures on minors.

7. Mandate investigations into pharmaceutical companies and hospital networks for potentially concealing negative side effects and marketing unapproved drugs.

8. Direct the Department of Education to ensure school personnel do not encourage discussions about gender identity without repercussions, and punish those that do.

9. Promote education that emphasizes traditional gender roles and the nuclear family.

10. Request a law to formally recognize only male and female genders assigned at birth.

11. Ban transgender women from taking part in women's sport.

12. Uphold parental rights concerning their children's gender identity decisions.

Will they do all of this?

There is no reason to believe that Trump will not follow up on this. To what extent the new administration will be able to implement these policies, will depend on several factors, including:

1. The outcome of legal processes in courts.

2. Public outrage.

3. Whether the Republicans take the House of Representatives.

To change federal legislation in this area, the Republicans need to control both houses of Congress.

A war on transgender people

This list proves that the Republican Party has now declared war on transgender people. This is a policy aimed at erasing trans people from society.

It is true that some of the proposals are aimed at children only, but we will not be surprised if that approach is extended to adults as well later on. In any case the message that gender incongruence in children is "not real" carries the message that this applies to adult identities too.

Note that the Republicans want to scare and numb people and institutions from supporting trans people. Out of fear of legal action individuals, companies and institutions may avoid giving trans people any support, even if it is legal on paper.

The public policy of the Trump administration will also encourage transphobes to attack trans people both in public and in private spaces.

Trans people and their allies inside and outside the US will have to plan for the worst. We have to do everything we can to unmask the cruelty of Trump and his Fascists. We need to make sure that the Republicans are not able to normalize this kind of cruelty.

See our article "Trump and the transphobes won in the US. But there are still ways trans people can win" for more on what we can do.

More on the effects of the election on American policies for transgender people.

Free hotlines for gender & sexual identity, LGBTQ+ in the United States.

Photo: Boogich

Originally published over at Transgender World.