Somehow, in the midst of a world full of security and social crises, the Trump administration continues to find it in itself to go after minorities. After another spike in anti-immigrant rhetoric thanks to a “caravan” of migrants attempting to make its way to the United States’ southern border, The New York Times reported the administration to be working on formalizing conservative takes on gender as the law. According to the outlet, the Department of Health and Human Services — as led by Ben Carson — wishes to enact a formal definition of sex and gender, tying the two terms together as a supposedly immutable scientific concept determined by one’s genitals at birth.
This change, if fully seen through, would exclude transgender people and other gender non-conforming people from not just protection, but recognition under federal law. It’s not that difficult to recognize that one’s biology at birth doesn’t dictate what social perceptions of gendered behavior one does or doesn’t adhere to throughout their life. Yet, this is the hill that the Trump administration has chosen to die on, seeking to turn material passed around among angry swaths of Trump supporters into federal law.
HHS is seeking the change, via a memo that’s reportedly been circulating since last year, under the provisions of federal Title IX legislation, which prohibits sex-based discrimination. The administration argues that LGBT people, many of whom have faced hardship for their identity, turned out by their families to the streets — or much worse — do not need (or at least don’t warrant) federal protection. The Obama administration had previously pushed the federal government’s anti-discrimination protections outward to include LGBT people.
HHS is preparing to present their proposal to the Justice Department for a formal legal opinion before the end of the year, according to The Times. From there, they’re seeking for each of the four federal agencies with a major hand in implementing Title IX legislation to adopt their rigid definition of sex/gender. Those agencies include the Departments of Education, Justice, and Labor in addition to HHS.
There are two currently under development rules where the sought definition change could very soon prove relevant. HHS has itself put one forward for review by the White House covering community health programs that benefit from government help, and the other from the Department of Education covers educational programs getting federal help that face complaints of sex discrimination.
There’s little apparent opening for the rule to be stopped within the Trump administration. They’ve directly gone after transgender people before, seeking to ban them from serving openly in the U.S. Armed Forces, for instance. President Donald Trump pushed a false claim that accommodating transgender people would present the military with a huge financial burden.
In addition, they’ve undertaken other steps like withdrawing federal guidance for schools to allow transgender students to use the facilities corresponding with their gender identity.
In the end, it comes down to the current administration concerning itself more with ideology than a full fledged respect of the human beings whose interests it’s supposed to be representing.
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