Trump’s turnaround of U.S. policy on the scourge of transgenderism continues to travel at high speed. In the six days since the executive order on Jan. 28 titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” (discussed here), three new significant developments have taken place, two highly positive ones that are coming from the Trump administration and one very negative one coming from Democrats. (RELATED: Trump Protects Children From Woke Abuse: New Executive Order Bans Chemical and Surgical Mutilation)

The Trump Administration Purifies the Executive Branch of “Gender Ideology”

On Jan. 29, the Office of Personnel Management sent out a memo to all the heads of departments and agencies, telling them to end the promotion of “gender ideology” (the idea that males can become female and females male) in accordance with Trump’s EO “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” and to do so by Friday, Jan. 31 at 5 p.m. (READ MORE: Trump’s Executive Order Ends ‘Trans’ Tyranny and Protects Females)

The scope and speed of the transgender housecleaning was impressive:

• Take down all federal websites or information within them that promote gender ideology.
• Terminate “all agency programs, contracts, and grants” and withdraw any regulations or directives that “promote … gender ideology.”
• Require all federal employees to remove pronouns from their email signatures.
• “Ensure that intimate spaces … are designated by biological sex and not gender identity.” No more biological males in female restrooms.
• Cancel any training that promotes gender ideology — no more struggle sessions.
• Remove from all documents “gender” or “gender identity” and replace with “sex,” allowing only the binary option of “male” or “female.”
• Put on “paid administrative leave” “all employees whose position description involves … promoting gender ideology.”

Compliance with the memo was reached by the deadline. Naturally, the left-wing media went into spasms over this memo (for examples go here, here, here, and here). Yet it was a boldly positive move for the country, which is growing increasingly tired of having to violate reason, conscience, and faith, not to mention endanger women and children, in order to appease the transgender idol.

My only regret is that the promotion of “sexual orientation” did not incur the same fate as “gender identity.”

The First Fruits of Trump’s Executive Order Combatting Trans Child Abuse

The second new (and positive) development was celebrated by the White House in a statement released on Feb. 3., Trump’s executive order “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” was “already having its intended effect — preventing children from being maimed and sterilized by adults perpetuating a radical, false claim that they can somehow change a child’s sex.”

Hospitals were the most impacted by the executive order: “Hospitals around the country are taking action to downsize or eliminate their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ programs.” The following are cases in point:

• Denver Health in Colorado, while obviously not wanting to comply with Trump’s EO, recognized in a Jan. 30 statement that they had little choice in the matter, since the EO

includes criminal and financial consequences for those who do not comply, including placing participation in federal programs including Medicare, Medicaid and other programs administered by HHS at risk. These programs represent a significant portion of Denver Health’s funding…. The loss of this funding would critically impair our ability to provide care for the Denver community.

How much is “a significant portion”? About $350 million per year in lost funding for Denver Health. Money talks even to transgender advocates who normally lack “the ears to hear.”

• Other hospitals that have “paused” or “suspended” the use of puberty blockers, cross-gender hormones, and transgender surgery on minors include: Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.; Children’s Hospital of Richmond, VA and Virginia Commonwealth University Health; and “Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters” in Norfolk, VA.
• New York City’s NYU Langone Health, “one of several major medical centers in the city with transgender health programs for youths,” reportedly began canceling puberty-blocking arm implants for 12-year-olds. New York has a huge “transgender child” problem from its coercive trans-indoctrination of children in the schools and the media. According to the New York Times, a whopping 3 percent of children aged 13 to 17 in the state of New York identify as transgender.

Democrats Strike Back in an Attempt to Reinstate Chemical Castration of Children

The third new development is a negative one: An attempt by Democrats to reinstate the destruction of children’s bodies. This has taken two forms.

First, New York’s notorious attorney general, Letitia James, sent a letter on Feb. 3 threatening hospitals with prosecution for violating the state’s anti-discrimination laws regarding “gender identity” as a protected class if they don’t continue dispensing puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones to children. James is determined to continue the practice of state-sponsored child abuse, lying to impressionable children about whether they can switch sexes, transitioning them to lifelong sterility and gender freakishness without any thought for how neurological, psychological, and sociological factors may be fueling their gender dysphoria.

Second, two Democrat Federal District Court judges have issued temporary restraining orders designed to thwart Trump’s attempt to manage federal funding consistent with his EOs. One restraining order was issued on Jan. 31 by the judge of the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island, John McConnell, an Obama appointee, in response to a lawsuit brought by Democratic state attorneys general.

The complaint had to do with the Office of Management and Budget’s general freeze on federal assistance to the states until a review of federal programs and policies could be made. The judge ruled that, until further order of the court, the federal government will not be able to “stop, delay, or otherwise withhold federal financial assistance programs” to the states.

On Feb. 3, the U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia, Loren AliKhan, a Biden appointee, in response to a lawsuit brought by nonprofits, issued a similar (but even more hostile) temporary restraining order. She indicated that the Trump administration would likely be ruled against for not “taking a measured approach to identify purportedly wasteful spending.” According to the acting director for the Office of Management and Budget, these rulings may affect Trump’s EOs, including “financial assistance for … DEI, woke gender ideology, and the Green New Deal,” pending further clarity by these judges.

It remains to be seen how this will all pan out. Not every issue is straightforward and obvious. This one is: The protection of children from the harmful clutches of transgender activism is a clear case of good. The pursuit of children by leftist sexual extremists, scarring children for life and destroying biological realities, is an obvious instance of evil.

READ MORE from Robert A. J. Gagnon:

Leftist Bishop Gets Her Bible Wrong: Falsely Attacked Trump at Inauguration Interfaith Service

Trump Protects Children From Woke Abuse: New Executive Order Bans Chemical and Surgical Mutilation

Trump’s Executive Order Ends ‘Trans’ Tyranny and Protects Females

Robert A. J. Gagnon is a visiting scholar at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Ridgeland, Miss., and has taught previously at Middlebury College, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and Houston Christian University. He has degrees from Dartmouth College (B.A.), Harvard Divinity School (M.T.S.), and Princeton Theological Seminary (Ph.D.). He has published a number of works, including The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon).