
© REUTERS
President Donald Trump on his first day in office Monday will issue an order defining a person's sex as "male or female" — requiring government agencies to use the "immutable" designation on forms and IDs while also ordering changes to federal prison policies that govern transgender inmates.
"What we're doing today is defining that it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes: male and female. These are sexes that are not changeable, and
they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality," an incoming White House official told reporters.
The policies are included in an executive order — one of dozens that Trump, 78, is expected to sign shortly after he assumes the presidency around noon.
The order will prevent people from changing their sex on US passports — which currently allow for holders to choose male, female or "X" — and will attempt to ban medical transition treatment for prisoners. Both new policies are likely to face litigation.The order will require the State Department, Department of Homeland Security and other agencies "to ensure that official government documents, including passports and visas, reflect sex accurately," the incoming official said.
Americans since 2010 — including during Trump's first term — have been able to change their sex on passports by submitting forms with a physician's approval.
However, outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended the doctor's sign-off for passports in 2021 and added the "X" gender marker in 2022.
The prison policies, meanwhile, will impact a population that the ACLU estimates at 1,200 federal inmates."We're going to add privacy in intimate spaces ... like women's prisons, women's migrant shelters, rape shelters [and] make sure the taxpayer funds are not being used to have so-called transition services," the incoming official said about Trump's order.It's unclear how the policy will impact transgender prisoners currently in women's prisons.
Very few transgender inmates have received transition surgeries on the taxpayer's dime — with Texas inmate Donna Langan believed to have become the first in December 2022,
the 19th reported.
Transgender rights became a campaign issue ahead of last year's election — with Trump vowing to attempt to end the participation of people born male in female sports.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, the outgoing vice president, received negative coverage and groans from her allies following the unearthing of her past pledge to support taxpayer-funded sex changes for illegal immigrants in federal custody.
Harris defended herself by arguing that doing so was the law and that Trump would have to follow the same guidelines.
Reader Comments
And that shit's gonna fly in a court room ... I don't think so
Meanwhile, the rest of the world splits with laughter that for the US, the president needs to proclaim such a basic fact publicly. Except the late US vassals, of course.
First, let me define this speech in terms of genre. It is a so-called jeremiad (after the biblical prophet Jeremiah). A Jeremiad is a literary work in which the author bitterly laments the state of society in a serious tone of constant invective, and which always contains some kind of prophecy. In this case, too, the US President has portrayed the previous period in a demandingly exaggerated manner as a dark age, after which the longed-for 'golden age of the United States' is now about to dawn. I will not be at all surprised if there are enough naive people who believe all this and even those who believe his words, which nevertheless give me the chills: 'God chose me to restore America to greatness'.
If a narcissistic egomaniac who has come to believe in himself and his chosen mission is at the helm of a world power, sober-minded people should beware. All the more so when, in his grandiose speeches, he assures his people that he is better than others, that he is superior to other nations - a typical feature of proto-fascist thinking. And, lest anyone be in any doubt, he also appended the slogan "We are one people, one family, one nation", from which it is only a step to the Nazi "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!"
Although Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine, he has also announced a number of initiatives that should concern us. Personally, I was almost mystified when he promised that 'We will tax foreign countries to enrich ourselves'. This may mean not only the announced introduction of tariffs against Europe and China, but also much tougher methods of trade wars. His push for a massive increase in oil production may ultimately weaken Russia. But above all, his announced drive for the territorial expansion of the United States (he has literally said that under his leadership, the US will be a country that is once again 'expanding its borders') is bringing back into American politics something that seemed to have been left behind in the 19th century: outright imperialism.
I will explain why this approach is dangerous. When in other countries paraphrase Trump's slogan 'Our country First', it is indeed a nationalist approach, but it means nothing more than the pursuit country's national and state interests within the existing system. However, under the slogan 'America first', the incoming US President is returning this slogan to its original fascist form, which meant the pursuit of American power interests without regard for the existing world order and international law. Although Trump styles himself as a peacemaker, he wants to achieve his goals through coercion and blackmail. Again, let us look to the past for an example.
Many would be surprised that Hitler's speeches of the 1930s are full of overuse of the word 'peace'. The Nazi leader made bilateral treaties with European states (with the Soviet Union only last, although to this day only Moscow is accused of this) and forced them to do his will. Only when they defied him did he deal with it militarily, hoping to the last moment that when he invaded Poland, the French and British would betray them as they had Czechoslovakia and pull with Hitler against Stalin. He was fatally mistaken and it was a world war.
Trump is trying to do something similar today. He believes he can make a deal with everyone. With threats and trade offers, he will ensure that he is given a free hand on Canada, Panama and Greenland, Russia can keep part of Ukraine, Turkey can keep large parts of Syria, Israel may be allowed to attack Iran (it has already recognised the occupation of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory), China will be promised that it will give up its claim to Taiwan, and so on. However, a temporary ceasefire will be achieved at the cost of deepening instability. For we already know from history that this gangster-like division of spheres of influence will fail somewhere and may bring us even closer to a world war, that it is just a time out for disgruntled great powers before the real struggle for the redistribution of the world. And I haven't mentioned his expected push for extreme increases in military spending, which even Trump is already openly saying is not to strengthen our security but to line the pockets of US arms companies.
The ancient Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu taught us the rule that war is not as scary as those who wage it. The main problem of our time is that there is no coherent idea of a future peaceful order of international relations, no vision of a world order. Even Trump does not have one. And that is why he may lead us to a world war before anyone else, even though he does not want one. Conservatives are looking forward to completely irrelevant things. Yes, he will send troops to the border, crack down on refugees, legislate two sexes, scrap the Green Deal. He can do all this very quickly. But in everything else, he is a risk.
Every 4 years, another spin of the settled issues and sciences.
Fighting, bickering and slander, with many scores to settle.
Progress? TBD
Americans worship the media, and conservatives are no less mesmerized by it than liberals. I have said before that no matter what happens next, the propaganda will be awesome. Los Angeles will indeed be "built back better," just like Trump misspoke.
I mean, it'll suit my personal tastes better, I think, but I also expect it to be used to push the conservatives over the edge just like they used it to turn the liberals into profoundly degenerate sexual retards...but I think for a while it might be pretty cool.
We'll probably need a good pep talk from our TV-gods to help us out with the horror of a war with Mexico's drug cartel too, or whatever alien schit hits the fan next, to make us feel good, and IMO Sly is the guy to do that. Mel Gibson obviously knows how to do this too, right? "Freeeedom!"
I think it's possible we are underestimating the potential of this presidential endorsement. I don't think Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight, and Mel Gibson will, though.
I look forward to a new era in Hollywood. I can smell the popcorn already. I think it'll be fun...for a while.
You'd have to be a fool to let that signal go unanswered. Besides, I think it would be nice to enjoy being an American for a change. I am way fucking sick of liberal media.