Trump’s executive actions curbing transgender rights focus on ‘gender ideology’

On day one, newly inaugurated President Trump signed an order aimed at eliminating the idea of a “gender identity” separate from sex in the federal government. The order’s scope is broad — it rescinds a long list of Biden-era policies, changes “gender” to “sex” on government forms and calls to end funding for “gender ideology.”

That phrase, “gender ideology,” became one of Trump’s favorite slogans on the campaign trail last year.

“I will take historic action to defeat the toxic poison of gender ideology and reaffirm that God created two genders, male and female,” he said in an October campaign speech.

Now, in that order and in several that followed, the administration is trying to put a longtime political phrase into practice, trying to ensure that the government is not promoting or supporting what it calls “gender ideology.” That means first giving the slogan a definition.

And that definition is a paragraph long:

“”Gender ideology’ replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true. Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.”

Opponents say that the definition — and therefore the order’s implementation across the government — are confusingly loose. To Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, an advocacy group focused on civil rights including transgender rights, that looseness is intentional.

“This is written in a way that is meant to be broad, but also with a specific goal, which is to push trans and non-binary people out of civic life,” he said.

To Jay Richards, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center at the conservative Heritage Foundation, the definition works.

“‘Gender ideology’ as it’s used in executive order is fairly general, but it’s not hard to tease out what’s meant by the term by actually looking at the effects and the emphases of the executive order itself,” he said.

‘Gender ideology’ as official policy

The term “gender ideology” existed well before Trump started using it. According to Factbase, which archives Trump’s public appearances, he first said the phrase publicly in 2022. Transgender and nonbinary people and their allies oppose the term “gender ideology,” as it implies a belief system rather than an identity.

“If we had an executive order that said ‘the left-handed ideology,’ people would understand immediately that that was not quite right,” said Seldin, at the ACLU. “Being left-handed is just a natural variation. Same with being transgender.”

Nearly 2 million American adults identify as transgender, according to a 2023 survey by KFF and the Washington Post, just under 1 percent of adults as a whole.

An administration memo giving directives on implementing the executive order has sparked further confusion, and even fear.

A mental health provider with the Department of Veterans Affairs spoke to NPR anonymously, for fear of retaliation. They said guidance at their job can shift from day to day about, for example, what statistics they can use in presentations.

They also pointed to a line in the memo saying employees whose jobs include quote “promoting gender ideology” should be put on paid leave.

“When we read that we were like, what does that mean? Is that any of us?” the provider said. “Or because of the way our profession looks at gender, is that all of us?”

Ultimately, the provider fears that if policy inhibits mental health care, suicide rates among transgender patients could rise.

A White House spokesperson, speaking on background to provide the administration’s general view, told NPR that they stand by the definition.

Focused on safety

The administration’s definition has a bigger impact than Trump’s initial action focusing on “gender ideology.” It also factors into orders aimed at removing that “ideology” from the military and K-12 schools.

Trump and his allies have long argued that all of this is about keeping women and girls safe.

“The concern is, especially with children and especially in private women’s spaces and in particular, I think, women’s prisons, the categories of gender ideology have started to dissolve the clear distinction between the biological sexes,” said Richards, at the Heritage Foundation.

He points to instances where women in prison have accused transgender women inmates of abuse, including rape. Government data has shown transgender inmates are at a higher risk of sexual victimization than other inmates.

The administration’s actions come amid a broader lack of clarity about the legal rights of transgender people in the United States.

For example, the Supreme Court has ruled that employers cannot fire workers for being transgender. But they have not spelled out further specifics — for example, about bathroom and locker room usage. To Seldin, that lack of clarity gives these orders more power.

“I think executive orders like this are giving folks permission to push the limits of what they can do,” he said.

A transgender woman working in intelligence for a defense contractor also spoke to NPR anonymously for fear of retaliation. She has been told that she’s soon losing access to her workplace’s women’s bathroom.

But Trump’s various executive orders have her wondering what else is coming. She pointed to the order about “gender ideology” in the military, which says that being transgender “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.”

Should that logic extend beyond military members, she said, she fears losing her security clearance, and therefore her job. As a result, she’s moving into a friend’s basement.

“I don’t feel comfortable signing a new lease anywhere,” she said. “It’s very hard to focus and feel motivated to work for a government that seems like it could fire me at any moment.”