Sarah Toce
Continuing his unprecedented attack on the LGBTQ+ community, and especially on transgender youth, President Donald J. Trump signed another anti-LGBTQ+ executive order on Wednesday.
“This is an all-out attack on LGBTQ+ and transgender students, as well as the educators, counselors, and school officials who treat such students with dignity and respect,” a spokesperson for Lambda Legal said.
The order requires schools to deny the existence of transgender people altogether. It would ban federally-funded educational institutions from respecting the identities of trans and gender non-conforming students, blocking them from using the correct restroom or participating in interscholastic athletics (sports teams).
Further, the order compels schools to inform a student’s parents or guardian if the student requests to be referred to with a different name or pronoun, regardless of whether such a notification could put the student at risk of harm.
The order also requires schools to teach students so-called “patriotic education,” whitewashing the chapters of our nation’s documented history related to race, gender, sexism, homophobia, and related injustices.
“Today, the Trump administration rolled out yet another executive order consisting of patently unconstitutional nonsense designed to demean transgender and all LGBTQ+ young people, deny their very existence, and cause them harm,” said Nicholas Hite, McDonald/Wright Senior Attorney, Lambda Legal.
“And this time, it is actively putting transgender and nonbinary youth in harm’s way in our nation’s public schools. Compelling federally-funded schools to disrespect the identities of LGBTQ+ youth, particularly trans youth, not only opens them up to harassment, bullying, and abuse, but in fact, encourages it,” Hite added.
Immediate legal action is being taken by Lambda Legal in an effort to thwart this heinous lawlessness and protect America’s LGBTQ+ community.
“Lambda Legal is taking a hard look at the details of this horrific executive order, as we have done with the other executive orders targeting our community that have been spewing out of this administration, and is actively considering potential courses of action,” Hite stated. “We fought the first Trump administration when it attacked us repeatedly, and we won again and again. We have no intention of backing down from the fight with Trump 2.0.”
