Donald Trump wants to impose in the United States only two genres, “masculine and feminine”. A promise, the one made at the Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, Arizona, by the president-elect, which smacks of a concrete threat to the existence of millions of transgender or non-binary people.
Speaking at the AmericaFest conference, in one of the states where he swept the November elections, he then promised severe measures against “immigrant crime” and reiterated his promise to restore U.S. control of the Panama Canal.
Trump – who will take office again in the White House in a few weeks – has returned to one of his warhorses of the electoral campaign, a theme supported even from the billionaire Elon Musk which, in July announced its intention to move SpaceX's headquarters from California to Texas, after the Democratic governor of the state, Gavin Newsom, signed a law that encourages schools to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people. And despite her daughter Vivian Jenna being established as a woman who has just come of age, changing her gender on documents and denying her paternal surname.
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“Only two genders in the US: I will stop transgender madness”
The tycoon therefore committed to “stop the transgender madness” on the first day of his presidency, while the Republicans – destined to control both houses of Congress and the White House – continue their push against LGBTQ rights. “I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, to get transgender people out of the military and out of our elementary, middle and high schools,” the future president said at the event for young conservatives. Trump also promised to “keep men out of women's sports,” adding that “the official policy of the United States government will be that there are only two gendersmasculine and feminine”.
Transgender issues have shaken U.S. politics in recent years, as Democratic- and Republican-controlled states have moved in opposite directions on policies such as medical care e the books on the topic admitted in public or school libraries. Last week, when the US Congress approved the annual defense budget, it included a provision blocking funding for some gender-affirming care for trans children of service members.
The speech in Phoenix
In his keynote speech on Sunday 22 December, Trump made very ambitious promises for his second term and outlined a gloomy picture of the four years that preceded it, under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the latter defeated in the 2024 elections. “On January 20, the United States will forever turn the page on four long and horrible years of failure, incompetence and national decline, and we will usher in a new era of peace, prosperity and national greatness,” Trump said, referring to his swearing-in.”I will end the war in Ukraine. I will stop the chaos in the Middle East and I will preventI promise the third world war”.
And again, with his usual animated verve: “I can proudly proclaim that America's golden age has arrived.” The president-elect has not yet publicly explained how he plans to bring peace to Ukraine, nearly three years after Russia invaded, or to the Middle East. But with the kind of bellicose language which he has also sometimes used against US allies in the past, Trump said the Panamanians “did not treat us fairly” in their handling of the Panama Canal.
He had previously said that fees for use of the canal – construction of which was started by France and completed by the United States – were “ridiculous”. And yesterday he added that if the principles underlying the 1970s treaty that gave Panama full control of the canal are not respected, “then we will demand” that it be returned to the United States “in full, quickly and without questions.” .
