President Donald Trump signed a highly anticipated order Monday evening setting the policy of the federal government to recognize two biological sexes as opposed to gender identity, influencing a range of policies from federal prisons to passports and visas.
“Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being,” reads the executive order, signed by Trump in a wide-ranging Oval Office signing ceremony.
INAUGURATION DAY LIVE UPDATES: DONALD TRUMP RETURNS TO THE WHITE HOUSE
The order explicitly instructs the Departments of State and Homeland Security to use biological sex as opposed to gender identity on all passports, visas, and Global Entry program cards, a move that is expected to cause significant difficulties for those who received federal documents with an X designation during the Biden administration.
The order also outlines that biological males cannot be detained in women’s prisons or detention centers. Trump also instructed the Bureau of Prisons to revise its current policies concerning “any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
During his second inaugural address, Trump said the start of his administration will “end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.”
“As of today, it will henceforth be the policy of the United States government that there will only be two genders, male and female,” Trump said in the Capitol Rotunda early Monday afternoon.
The order itself does not reference gender, only biological sex, defining male and female based on reproductive sex cells, or gametes. The text of the order refers to the female ovum, or egg, as “the large reproductive cell” and male sperm as “the small reproductive cell.”
White House aides are instructed to provide to the president within 30 days proposed bill text to codify the definitions of male and female.
Incoming Trump administration officials told reporters Monday morning that all federal employees are going to use the term “sex,” not “gender,” when referencing male or female because the “social element to gender roles and gender norms infect the reality of sex.”
The Trump spokesperson also said that the executive order recognized the “corrosive impact” of placing gender identity over biological sex.
The order defines gender ideology as “an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true.”
“When women are not allowed to have single-sex spaces, that extends then to trust in government itself,” said the Trump spokesperson. “When the government fails to recognize the truth and treat self-identification as more important than biological sex, people can no longer trust their government.”
Trump on the campaign trail in September promised that women “will be protected” during his second term in the White House, calling himself a “protector” of women in the context of abortion policy.
“Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free,” Trump said at the time.
The executive order also begins to address the hot-button issue of biological males playing on female sports teams in K-12 and collegiate athletics, as well as single-sex locker rooms, by instructing the Attorney General to issue guidance applying the new definition of male and female to Title IX regulations.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said in a statement Monday afternoon that Trump’s gender order is “the first step in restoring common sense and sanity in this country.”
“Instead of trying to erase sex, the administration is recognizing it, celebrating it,” said Walberg. “Doing so will give women and girls opportunities to thrive and excel on and off the field.”