Donald Trump promises transphobic policies that will target youth and service members on 'day one'

President-elect Donald Trumptold supporters he intends to use executive orders to “end transgender lunacy.” That includes demanding the federal government only recognize two genders.

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Trump spoke on Sunday at AmericaFest, a gathering of the right-wing Turning Point USA held in Arizona. There, the incoming president said he would prohibit gender-affirming care for minors nationwide. He also said he would reinstitute a trans military ban, bar trans youth from competing in sports based on their gender identity, and even hinted he may prohibit transgender individuals from working in schools.

“With a stroke of my pen on day one, we are going to stop the transgender lunacy,” Trump said. “And I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools, and we will keep men out of women's sports.”

He went on to say his administration would only recognize a binary understanding of gender.

“Under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” he said. “Doesn't sound too complicated, does it.”

Trump's comments over the weekend differ from a recent interview he did where he seemed to want to distance himself from conversations around transgender rights.

“I don’t want to get into the bathroom issue,” Trump told Time. “Because it’s a very small number of people we’re talking about, and it’s ripped apart our country, so they’ll have to settle whatever the law finally agrees.”

Of course, such an action will almost certainly result in litigation. But unlike during Trump’s first term in the White House, the U.S. Supreme Court now leans heavily to the right thanks in large part to three Supreme Court justices Trump appointed to the bench.

The high court is already considering a case now challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care, in United States v. Skrmetti.

The high court in August also stopped President Joe Biden’s administration from immediately enforcing protections from states banning trans youth from sports participation. The Biden administration last week abandoned its attempt to implement those policies under Title IX.

Trump in 2017 announced a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, a policy Biden lifted in his first week in office in 2021. Notably, no active transgender people were discharged during Trump’s term, but the Republican’s executive order prohibited new enlistments until he left office. Earlier this year, a report indicated that Trump planned to bring back his ban but additionally kick out trans military service members.

But some of the policies unrolled in Trump’s speech would be unprecedented. It’s unclear what it would mean to keep transgender people out of schools and whether that includes students themselves.

Likewise the reach of any policy only recognizing male and female genders remains unclear. The State Department allows passports to list other gender identities, and the U.S. Census is considering survey questions recognizing a spectrum of gender identities.