The Trump regime is pondering defining trans Americans out of existence at both the federal and state levels, yet another reversal of Obama-era federal policy that would eliminate basic civil rights protections for more than a million Americans.
The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.
A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.
Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.
The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” 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.”
The new definition would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.
“This takes a position that what the medical community understands about their patients — what people understand about themselves — is irrelevant because the government disagrees,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in the Obama administration and helped write transgender guidance that is being undone.
The move would be the most significant of a series of maneuvers, large and small, to exclude the population from civil rights protections and roll back the Obama administration’s more fluid recognition of gender identity. The Trump administration has sought to bar transgender people from serving in the military and has legally challenged civil rights protections for the group embedded in the nation’s health care law.
Several agencies have withdrawn Obama-era policies that recognized gender identity in schools, prisons and homeless shelters. The administration even tried to remove questions about gender identity from a 2020 census survey and a national survey of elderly citizens.
For the last year, health and human services has privately argued that the term “sex” was never meant to include gender identity or even homosexuality, and that the lack of clarity allowed the Obama administration to wrongfully extend civil rights protections to people who should not have them.
As I have said time and time again, the goal is absolute cruelty to the Obama coalition, not to just break it up and render it politically non-viable, but to smash it to bits and make sure that those who need federal protections the most never get them, to make sure that they never have the political power again to ever dare challenge the status quo of white, Christian, cisgender male patriarchy.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asserted on Sunday that Democrats would impose “mob rule” if they won the U.S. House of Representatives in November.
During an interview on Fox News, the senior senator from South Carolina adopted President Donald Trump’s talking points on so-called Democratic “mobs.”
“I think people are going to be voting on the mob rule of the Democratic Party,” Graham told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. “If you elect Democrats to run the House, you know exactly what you’re going to get. They’re going to try and impeach the president and impeach [Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh].”
“They don’t care about your wallet — they just want to get in your wallet,” he continued. “[Kavanaugh’s confirmation], to me, was a despicable episode in the history of the Senate. These [migrant] caravans will never be stopped by Nancy Pelosi. And when it comes to standing up to the world, you need a strong leader like President Trump.”
Graham revealed that he had been handpicked by Trump to campaign for Republicans in 13 states.
“I’m going to let everybody in these states know what happens if you put the Democratic Party in charge of this country,” he said. “You’re rewarding mob rule. You’re undercutting the rule of law. Don’t give these people power.”
“The best thing you can do to make sure [the Kavanaugh confirmation battle] never happens again is punish them for what they were willing to do to this good man,” the senator added. “Two weeks from Tuesday, we can decide what kind of country you want to be. Do you want to be the country of people who run you up and down the halls [of Congress] and spit on you. Or do you want to be a country of Republicans who can actually deliver for working families out there?”
“Nancy Pelosi will welcome the caravans here,” he concluded. “Donald Trump and the rest of us will stop them.”
Or as Adam Serwer keeps saying, "The cruelty is the point".
Besides, the Trump regime's base runs on fear and hatred, and must always be fed new enemies lest the base turn on Trump. And history tells us that deadly violence against "the other" will only get exponentially worse in the months and years ahead. They're letting us know exactly what is coming, and they want us so terrified that we hide forever.
I don't plan to let that happen, and if you care about this country, neither should you.
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