How U.S. Anti-Trans Orders Could Affect All Families

My family is obviously, visibly queer. I am a woman married to a woman. We conceived twins and a singleton at the same time for pseudo triplets 10 days apart, and we are a three-parent family–coparenting with our babies' biological father in Detroit.

President Trump's anti-trans executive orders have far-reaching implications that threaten my family's very existence. And believe it or not, they might threaten yours, too.

How anti-trans orders threaten all families

Because these orders are not only anti-queer (not just anti-trans), they also lay the groundwork to attack any family (yes, even the straights) who raise their children outside the gender binary.

I’m not talking about people who use they/them pronouns for their toddler or who refuse to participate in gendered activities like “daddy and daughter” dances. It’s more subtle than that. I’m talking about people who buy their toddler son a doll or sign their boys up for dance class and their girls for football.

Why gender inclusivity matters

There’s an increasing trend among millennial parents toward gender-neutral parenting. I am not neutral about gender. I prefer the term “gender-inclusive”.

I think hormones have incredible impacts on how our bodies and minds develop. While these often fall into standard male/female categories, they don’t always. So, I believe in parenting children without imposing rigid gender stereotypes or demanding they act a certain way. This has been shown by scientific studies and anecdotal evidence to be holistically beneficial to children.

The legal perspective

“These executive orders are infringing on parents’ rights to make their own private medical decisions for their children—ironic considering the Republican party is the ‘individual rights’ party,” says Amira Hasenbush, one of the founding lawyers of All Family Legal, PC, a firm that serves all types of families.

Hasenbush’s clients have already been impacted. The orders reach far beyond trans issues—they interfere with how any parent might choose to raise their child, particularly when it comes to gender expression. This isn’t a niche queer issue. It’s a parenting issue.

When boys wear dresses

My boys can choose to wear dresses as well as pants, play with dolls as well as cars, and learn to cook as well as throw hoops. But because our society is shaped by the patriarchy (a system where men are viewed as superior and women, inferior), it’s far more acceptable for girls or women to do things once reserved for boys or men.

President Trump’s administration isn’t demonizing girls or women for prioritizing education or careers, for instance. (Yet.) Nor are girls being mocked for wearing pants. It’s okay for girls to be like boys, because masculinity is superior. But when a boy acts like a girl, when he appears to "lower" himself, he gets ridiculed, shamed, even threatened.

So girls can come over and kick balls with my boys and play with their action figures and wear their hand-me-down superhero shirts. But if my boys want to paint their nails, have a tea party and wear hand-me-down Elsa dresses, that’s taboo. I see it a lot. Relatives positively reinforce “boyish” behaviour from my boys and frown on anything “feminine.” Once, a family member refused to be in a photo with them because two of the boys were wearing “girl” clothes. They weren’t even two years old. People have said things like, “Why are you pushing your ideology on your boys?” or worse, “You deserve to have your kids taken away, and you rot in jail for this abuse.” I’m not saying you need to dress your kiddos in neutral or opposite-sex clothes. Nor do you have to agree that it’s a good thing to do. “I wouldn’t do it, but you do you,” is totally acceptable.

Societal implications of the order

Here’s the real concern, though. When our society makes it okay to bully or threaten someone for breaking outside the gender binary in some ways, we open a door for it to be okay to threaten them in any way that anyone disagrees with.

Is it okay to bully my toddler boy when he wants to crack an egg and cook breakfast with me? Most people would say no. What if he were wearing an apron or a dress while stirring the eggs?

When other people feel entitled to be the sole arbiters of parenting, and executive orders declare deviation from their gender norms as “dangerous,” all parents’ rights are at risk.

How threats to gender identity affect fertility treatments

The comments and reactions I’ve described all happened before the Trump administration took power, when LGBTQ+ rights were still protected by law. Now, those rights are under direct fire.

The executive orders Trump is signing aren’t only anti-trans (though that’s bad enough). They’re written in ways that threaten all queer and gender-inclusive families.

Take the order titled “DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM.” It presents itself as targeting trans people. But one indirect consequence could be the restriction or elimination of assisted reproductive technology (ART).

“Most queer families are born through ART, and many straight families are also built through ART,” Hasenbush says. And many of her clients are worried about how the administration’s language—asserting that the most valid family is a husband and wife conceiving through intercourse—could impact their legal recognition.

With their “large cell” and “small cell” definitions, the Trump administration has essentially declared that gender is determined solely by whether a person produces eggs or sperm.

“They’re creating definitions of gender that will refute what is happening at the biological level of parenting for many families,” Hasenbush explains. “This can interfere with family formation and family recognition.”

In that way, ART becomes tied to gender-affirming care. As attorney Alana Chazan, also a founding lawyer of All Family Legal, PC, puts it, “It’s all part and parcel of the same thing.”

The order’s title—“DEFENDING WOMEN”—also implies that anyone who is trans is a sexual predator. It erases the reality that people exist between or outside of “MAN” and “WOMAN,” and it brands anyone who blurs that binary as a danger.

Gender policing and its consequences

The anti-trans mentality has been whipped into such a furor that anecdotal reports are going viral on social media of women (biologically born women, who identify as women–the people these orders are professedly protecting) being bullied and threatened in public restrooms because they’re too tall, their hair is too short, they don’t look “feminine” enough.

Being anti- one type of human lays the groundwork for being anti-any type of human.

Can families now be accused of turning their child “trans” if their child wears the “wrong” clothes? Can parents lose their rights if any given CPS officer decides a boy’s environment has too much femininity–or a girl’s, too much masculinity?

Since Trump's order rescinds guidelines on protecting LGBTQ+ children from bullying in school, will my children now be a target because they have two moms?

As Chazan points out, “Looking feminine or masculine in LA is very different from what looking feminine or masculine in the Midwest looks like.” Even if parents decided to cave and just follow the boy/girl binary, there isn’t even a universal consensus on what the binary is.

Can a boy cook? Can he colour? Can he wear pink? Okay, what about a dress? Where’s the line?

“These orders are impacting everyone’s ability to exist,” says Chazan. “If you’re living in this world, they impact your ability to parent in this world.”

Chazan offers a few words of comfort. “It’s unfortunate that a lot of organizations are proactively trying to comply with [Trump’s] executive orders. If everyone just rolls over and doesn’t even make an attempt to challenge these orders, then they may as well be law. But Trump’s executive orders are not law.”

The legal process works slowly, she assures us. Existing rights—like same-sex marriage—won’t be overturned overnight. And queer people have been here before. During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, when the government ignored and vilified us, we organized. We looked out for one another. We survived. We fought.

Do you know the poem First They Came based on a 1946 speech by Martin Niemöller?

“First they came for the Communists / And I did not speak out / Because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Socialists / And I did not speak out / Because I was not a Socialist/ Then they came for me / And there was no one left / To speak out for me.”

Well, on day one of the Trump administration, they came for the trans people.

But I am speaking out. Because this isn’t just about trans people. It’s about anyone who is nonbinary, or looks androgynous, or just wants to wear what they damn well want. It’s about anyone who’s queer, period—because an attack on any type of queer lays the groundwork for an attack on all types of queer.

It’s about believing that parents have the freedom—and the responsibility—to raise their children in the way they think best, as long as it supports and doesn’t harm them. It’s about human rights. The right to life. To liberty. And to the pursuit of happiness.

So that one day, we can tell our children:

On day one, they came for the trans people, But I am speaking out. And this attack on our freedom stops with us.