A few weeks ago, I read a news article that made me angry, sad, and scared within the time it took me to read the headline. On Oct. 21, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is putting into motion a plan which would define trans* Americans out of existence.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under U.S. President Donald Trump’s direction, is aiming to reverse advances made under Obama and to boil gender down to a simple, unchangeable binary: male or female. This identity would be determined at birth, entirely based on a baby’s genitals, and be completely set in stone.
The HHS intends to add this definition to title IX, the American legislation that prohibits gender discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding. There are 1.4 million adults in the U.S. who self-identify as part of the trans* community. This change would make all of them invisible in the eyes of the federal government. However, as this change is targeted specifically at educational institutions, it would make the lives of trans* students more difficult and dangerous on a day-to-day basis.
Now, I should take a moment for a disclaimer: this is not an issue upon which I am simply a neutral observer. I identify as genderqueer. For me, this means that my own gender identity isn’t quite man or woman but somewhere in the middle. Canada is, on balance, a fairly safe place to live as a trans* person, and there is legislation to protect me and the rest of the Canadian trans* community from discrimination at both the federal and provincial levels. For a moment, however, I’d like to imagine how different those protections would be if I was a student at an American school—if I was a student at Cornell instead of Carleton.
I live in Carleton residence. I have my pronouns, “they/them/theirs,” proudly emblazoned on a name tag on my door, with a small Pride flag sticker sitting just below. Let’s imagine that another student lived on my floor, who thought my gender identity was unacceptable, ripped down my name tag and Pride flag, and slid threatening notes under my door. At Carleton, steps would be taken to ensure that this harassment did not happen again. However, under Trump’s policy, there would be no harassment to prevent.
Even if I didn’t live on residence, this policy could have massive repercussions for trans* students in the classroom. Students in the U.S. could be discriminated against by teachers and professors, or even not admitted to university based on their gender identity and expression.
The plans to change title IX’s definition of gender to one purely based on genitalia would make it more difficult to be trans* on American university and college campuses. More importantly, however, is the message that this new policy would send.
The federal government declaring that the trans* community does not exist would almost certainly embolden those who hold anti-trans views to attack trans* individuals. The trans* community already faces a disproportionate amount of violence and abuse when compared to average Americans. This new definition makes my heart ache for my trans* brothers, sisters, and siblings south of the border, and makes me nervous to see what the next assault our community endures will be.
Note: the term “trans*” refers to a spectrum of gender identities.
