Donald Trump has signed another executive order aimed at the transgender community on Tuesday, this time prohibiting gender transitions for people under the age of 19.
“It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” reads the president’s executive order.
The order denotes that “child” or “children” means an individual or individuals under 19 years of age and that the term “pediatric” means relating to the medical care of a child. It also clarifies that the phrase “chemical and surgical mutilation” entails puberty blockers, the use of hormones such as estrogen or testosterone, and surgical procedures. Much of what is mentioned is known as gender-affirming care.
The order also alleges that doctors are ”maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions”.
Trump’s order continues to say it’s a “dangerous trend that will be a stain on our Nation’s history” and that the US will not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another”.
Notably, studies show that allowing trans teens access to hormone replacement therapy medications lead to lower rates of depression and a lower risk for suicide. Additionally, a 2022 study by the Stanford University School of Medicine found that positive mental health outcomes were higher for transgender people who were able to access hormone replacement therapy medications as teenagers, versus those who accessed it as adults.
The order directs that federally run insurance programs, including Tricare for military families and Medicaid, exclude coverage for such care and calls on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice.
Medicaid programs in some states cover gender-affirming care. The new order suggests that practice could end and target hospitals and universities that receive federal money and provide the care. It’s likely to be challenged in court.
This order comes alongside others by the Trump administration that effectively overturn many Biden administration-era protections of transgender people.
On Monday, Trump signed an order intended to eliminate “gender radicalism in the military”; it directed the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender troops, and is widely expected to lead to a ban.
Specifically, the order said the adoption of a gender identity different to a person’s biological sex “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and was harmful to military readiness.
Trump previously said he would ban transgender troops from serving in the military during his first term, which he did not follow through with at the time – though his administration froze recruitment of transgender people while allowing serving personnel to remain. That decision was overturned by Biden in 2021.
Last week, the US state department froze all applications for passports with “X” sex markers and all changes to gender identity on existing passports in response to the executive order Trump signed on his first day in office titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. That order mandates that government-issued identification documents exclusively use “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female”.
These targeted orders have been met with much backlash from those within the trans community and their allies. In response to Trump’s order on the military, several current and prospective service members who are transgender are now suing both Trump and the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, citing that it violates the equal protection component of the fifth amendment.
“It’s very clear that this order, in combination with the other orders that we’ve seen over the past week, are meant to not protect anyone in this country, but rather to single-mindedly drive out transgender people of all ages from all walks of civic life,” said Harper Seldin, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.
Seldin said the ACLU is reviewing the order “to understand what, if anything, has immediate effect versus what needs to go through continued agency action”.
