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Trump Administration Considering Narrowing the Definition of Gender, Threatening Trans Rights

The Department of Health and Human Services is leading efforts to define sex as an unchangeable condition determined by genitalia at birth.
Trump Administration Considering Narrowing the Definition of Gender, Threatening Trans Rights
Philadelphia’s Transgender community rallied in Love Park in Center City Philadelphia before marching through downtown to demand basic human and civil rights in Philadelphia, US, on 6th October 2018. (Photo by Cory Clark/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
By Breanna Edwards ·
It is 2018, the Year of Beyoncé, and yet it seems as if Donald Trump is trying to send us back to 1940, the Year of the Bigots, as the administration considers narrowly defining gender as an unchangeable condition determined by genitalia at birth. According to a New York Times report, the Department of Health and Human Services is leading an effort to legally define sex under Title IX, which bans gender discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding. In the memo, the DHHS argued that government agencies have to have a clear definition of gender designated “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The New York Times reports:

The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.” That means that the 1.4 million Americans who identify as transgender would basically be not recognized by federal law, dismantling all of the decisions made by the Obama administration, namely that gender is recognized as the individual’s choice and not reflected in the sex that the individual was assigned at birth. “This takes a position that what the medical community understands about their patients — what people understand about themselves — is irrelevant because the government disagrees,” Catherine E. Lhamon, who headed the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in Obama’s administration and helped to write transgender guidance that is being threatened. The DHHS’ excuse? According to the Times the agency has argued that “sex” was never inclusive of gender identity, or even homosexuality.

“Transgender people are frightened,” Sarah Warbelow, the legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, told the Times. “At every step where the administration has had the choice, they’ve opted to turn their back on transgender people.”

And that is a fact, for who can forget the Trump administration’s push to stop trans folk from serving their country in the military? As the story broke, transgender people have took to social media to fight back against the proposal, starting the hashtag #WontBeErased  
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