Donald Trump’s first strike on gender ideology

Trump restored reality into government when he redefined sex in terms of biology. But why was he silent on medical practices for children?

*** This article was originally published before Trump’s second executive order protecting children. ***

This piece was originally published in French on 27 January 2025.

On his first day in office, Donald Trump set out to defend women from gender ideology extremism and restore biological truth to the United States Federal Government. That indeed was the title of his Executive Order, signed by the new president on 20 January.

Much of this document will be welcome news to everyone who has become exasperated with nonsensical ideas about sex and gender that proliferated under Joe Biden. But why did Trump fail to deal with probably the biggest scandal of all – the sterilisation and mutilation of children in the name of gender ideology?

Trump is certainly well aware of the horror that is happening in paediatric gender clinics across the United States.  Almost two years ago, he vowed to protect children from what he called “Left-Wing Gender Insanity”.  No serious country, he said, should be “telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender”.In particular, he pledged to, “Pass a law prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states”. For good measure, he added that he would “Support the creation of a private right of action for victims to sue doctors who have unforgivably performed these procedures on minor children.”

In Trump’s America, therefore, children’s gender clinics would have expected to face the full force of the law if they continued to conduct what are unethical, uncontrolled and hitherto unnecessary wholly experiments on children. So why was his Executive Order silent on these clinics?

He covered much of the rest of this sorry mess, with a stroke of the presidential pen. In the mind of the US government, sex once again became an “immutable” fact based on biological classifications, and distinct from gender identity. Federal agencies are now required to adopt this definition and apply it to all policies, documents and communications, and there will be no federal funding for initiatives that promote gender ideology. Single-sex spaces will be protected, as far as the federal government is concerned. In particular, male criminals will no longer be able to self-identify as female in order to be incarcerated with women rather than men.

There is much in this order that European governments would be wise to adopt. Biological reality is not some bigoted right-wing idea; it underpins everything we understand about the natural world of which human beings are a part. It was madness to try and pretend that biology did not matter when dividing men from women, and it will be ultimately indefensible. The sight of men in women’s spaces, not only in prisons but anywhere that nudity or semi-nudity is expected, generates feelings that cannot be quenched by political diktat.

But while the United States returns to common sense on some issues, American children are still at risk. Trumps’ Executive Order defends women; he desperately needs to write another that protects children. In 2022, Reuters reported that over 100 American gender clinics treated children. From the start of adolescence, those interventions included puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and, in some cases, surgery. In all of it, the aim was supposedly to support and affirm the child’s gender identity. Whether the intentions are good or bad, the facts remain.

Firstly, nobody can define gender identity without recourse to circular reasoning or sexist stereotypes. Even the diagnosis of gender dysphoria in children rests entirely on an unsupported assertion from the child – a boy can say that he wants to become a girl – along with preferences of dress and toys. Even the sex of their friends. According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), evidence for gender dysphoria in children includes, “a strong preference for playmates of the other gender”.

Secondly this seems to be very much a solution that has created the problem. Twenty years ago, there were no gender clinics for children – the first was opened in Boston, Massachusetts as recently as 2007 – and apparently no need for them. Yes, growing up was hard for some children at least, but the agonies of puberty and adolescence are part of what it means to be human.

But that’s presumably not the way the doctors in the clinics see it as they supply unlicensed drugs to children to stop their natural development and induce an alternative pathway. Teenage boys develop breasts while teenage girls grow facial hair. Most seriously of all, healthy children are wheeled into operating theatres to have body parts removed. In 2019, 238 girls aged 13-to-17 underwent mastectomies following a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Those numbers rose to 256 in 2020, and 282 in 2021. For what? An unhappiness with their developing bodies, and perhaps a preference for friendships with boys rather than other girls?

In other contexts, there is a compelling argument that body modification procedures are reserved for adults, and that is widely accepted. So, for example, children are deemed to be unable to consent to a tattoo. If they want to change their bodies, then they can wait until they are adults. But appallingly, the moment they claim a transgender identity, those safeguards can be lifted. Children, too young to know what it means to be an adult, have been able to make mistakes with life-long consequences.

A presidential Executive Order alone might not be able to prohibit those procedures, or stop the puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that could well leave children unable to ever have children of their own, but as US President, Trump can still set out his views and his intentions.

This abuse of vulnerable children is a tragedy that can be rectified in two ways. On one hand, the criminal law could prohibit the administration of drugs and surgeries as a treatment for gender dysphoria in children. On the other hand, the government could support former patients to bring claims against their doctors. Even the prospect of future historic claims might be enough to persuade many practitioners to choose another branch of medicine.

Trump has had much to say about these things in the past. Now he is back in the White House, America needs to hear a reprise of those words.

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By Debbie Hayton

Debbie Hayton is a teacher and journalist.

Her book, Transsexual Apostate – My Journey Back to Reality is published by Forum

* This article was first published in French by Le Point on 27 January 2025: Donald Trump et l’idéologie du genre : un combat à demi-mesure.