(NewsNation) — President Donald Trump signed executive orders Monday recognizing only two sexes, male and female.
The gender identity order will limit the choice of gender identification to sexes assigned at birth and direct federal agencies to cease the promotion of the concept of gender transition.
“I will end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” Trump said Monday in his inaugural address. “We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
The order will require Americans to select their sex assigned at birth on government documents like passports and visas.
The State Department issued the first U.S. passport with an “unspecified” gender marker in 2022, denoted by a single letter X, NewsNation affiliate “The Hill” reported.
The executive order says it restores the “biological truth to the federal government,” defining male and female based on reproductive function, which an administration official told The Hill was intentional.
“Chromosomes are characteristic of your sex, but the binary nature of sex, the reason you and I are all here, is deeper than that. It is the large reproductive cell, the small reproductive cell, working together in a binary function in order to perpetuate the species,” the official told The Hill.
Trump’s executive order also tasks the attorney general with providing guidance on how the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which determined that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects workers from discrimination because of their gender identity or sexuality, may be applied to other federal statutes.
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the order reads.
Monday’s executive order will likely face legal challenges in the months and years ahead.
The ACLU has pledged to take the administration to court “wherever we can.” Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney who last month became the first transgender person to argue before the Supreme Court, wrote in an Instagram post that Trump’s orders “do not and cannot change the law.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, said Monday’s orders “serve no other purpose than to hurt our families and our communities” and stressed that they would not take effect immediately, “The Hill” reported.
Janson Wu, senior director of state advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention organization, said Trump’s executive orders “will cause harm,” especially for young people.
“We know that many people are feeling afraid, or even confused, by what certain actions today and in the coming days mean for our community,” Wu said. “I want to remind everyone that we are prepared for whatever lies ahead — and will continue to protect and care for each other now, just as we always have.”
NewsNation affiliate “The Hill” contributed to this report.
