Donald Trump promised Monday to sweep away policies in favor of transgender people, saying that the United States would no longer recognize only “two sexes, male and female” defined at birth, and that federal aid to strengthen diversity would also be eliminated .
The 47e President of the United States has thus confirmed, as hammered out throughout his campaign, his desire to attack what some American conservatives consider to be excesses in diversity and minority inclusion programs.
“From today on, the official policy of the United States government will be that there are only two sexes, male and female,” he said during his inauguration in Washington.
To give a first concrete translation to this speech, and in the middle of a whirlwind of announcements and decrees, the Republican revoked several texts signed by his predecessor Joe Biden to fight against racial or gender discrimination.
Risks
For the presidential team, the two sexes, men and women, “are not modifiable” and “are based on a fundamental and incontestable reality”.
During his campaign, Donald Trump promised to put an end to the “transgender delusion” in the United States, while according to the Human Rights Campaign organization, 26 American states already ban transition hormone therapy for minors.
According to the Williams Institute, a think tank at the University of California, about 1.6 million people over the age of 13, including 300,000 adolescents, identify as transgender in the United States, but only a minority enter therapy. transition.
Studies highlight that young transgender people are more victims of depression and that their suicide rate is higher than the rest of the population.
Donald Trump’s announcements did not surprise Angel Bullard, a 22-year-old transgender student from Wyoming, visiting New York.
But she worries that the majority of the population “doesn’t understand” their effects. “It’s already horrible not being able to affirm your gender and being alone in the world. I’m very lucky because I have my friends, and they support me 100%, but imagine not having that and going through what’s happening today,” she told AFP.
-Passport
One of the concrete consequences of Trumpist policy will be to remove the gender “X”, neither masculine nor feminine, for people identifying as non-binary, “on official government documents, including passports and visas [qui] will accurately reflect the sex” of birth, an official of the incoming administration told the press. This possibility was opened during the mandate of Joe Biden.
If these measures are applied, “it will be more difficult, if not impossible, for transgender people to obtain a passport marking their gender identity, and they will probably not be able to modify their data with Social Security”, underlines to AFP Jami Taylor, professor of political science and public administration at the University of Toledo (Ohio).
“Access to transitional care will also be at risk when federal funds are at stake. This will affect beneficiaries of Medicare (senior citizens), Medicaid (people with limited income), Tricare (military), and those receiving care in prison,” she adds.
But according to this expert, these policies will certainly be attacked in court by transgender people and the associations which defend their rights.
Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to order all federal agencies to stop supporting hormonal gender transition care. He also promised to “keep men away from women’s sport”, assigning any transgender person to their birth sex.
About half of American states, most often led by conservatives, already prohibit transgender middle and high school students from competing in a category other than the gender they were assigned at birth.
The American president-elect also wants to eliminate federal aid for programs supporting diversity in the administration, officials of his future team said on Monday.
“We are going to end this type of funding, we are going to end these programs,” said one of the sources, pointing to training on anti-racism and diversity.
