Gender Justice League strongly denounces the recent Executive Order by the Trump regime. While the following FAQ is not legal advice, it is our organization’s best understanding of the current status of the impacts of the most recent Executive Order as of Friday, January 24, 2025.
As a community surviving decades of political attacks and bigotry, many of us anticipated these attacks. On its face, the Executive Order is unconstitutional and flies in the face of decades of federal court rulings, constitutional protections, and cultural progress toward greater inclusion of TwoSpirit, Trans, and Gender Diverse people.
We will not allow this declaration to slow down our work, silence our community, or erase our identities.
Background: What happened?
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14166 specifically targeting Trans and gender diverse people. Beginning with a mandate to federal agencies to recognize only two immutable sexes determined at conception (and doing away with language around gender), the order threatens access to gender marker changes on federal documents such as passports, social security records, DOD DEERS records, or veterans benefits. The order also makes direct attacks on incarcerated Trans people by directing the Bureau of Prisons to house incarcerated individuals based on their assigned sex at birth, and to deny any requests for gender-affirming care from incarcerated people.
While the implications for Trans people are profound, it is important to know that this Executive Order does not change our rights, nor does it directly change the laws passed by Congress, rulings by federal courts, or the Constitution. In fact, many of its mandates are in direct conflict with the aforementioned, and many more have unclear avenues for implementation.
What the order does do is that it begins the process of changing federal agency policies. We can see the order as a roadmap to what the new administration is trying to figure out how to implement.
How quickly will changes happen?
Executive Orders are transmitted to federal agencies after they have been placed in the federal register. Federal Agencies (e.g. Social Security, Department of State, or Office of Management and Budget) will then take the Executive Order and draft new rules and policies in areas they believe it affects. This process will take time—our guess is between 4-6 weeks. Once new policies are put into effect across these agencies, we can expect to see rejections for gender marker changes on federal documents. However, since the Executive Order has been posted, staff at any of these agencies may decide on their own to deny gender marker changes before official policies are actually put in place.
How will this impact passports?
As we have already seen, newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio has already transmitted a letter to staff at the Department of State that he is suspending gender marker changes on passports and refusing to issue passports with X designations. While the reporting doesn’t make clear how this will impact current passport holders, we believe that it would violate the 14th Amendment due process clause to “go back” and affect current passports that were legally issued. However, when passports expire, or when people seek a new passport or to renew their passport, this new discriminatory policy is currently in effect.
Gender Justice League is actively working with local and national partners to consider and pursue legal avenues to challenge this unconstitutional policy in federal court. The ACLU has also opened up a form for community members to share their experiences or concerns with gender markers on passports under this new administration.
What should I do if I don’t have a passport yet or need to renew?
We are urging people to consider very carefully the potential pros and cons of seeking a new passport or updating a passport. We do believe that people should still be able to change their legal name on their passport as this was not mentioned in the Executive Order. However, we urge extreme caution when considering changing or updating gender markers until federal courts have weighed in or suspended this policy guidance.
There are some community reports that Department of State staff have refused to return original identity documents used to obtain a passport “until the policy is more clear.” This could strand Trans people without the legal documents they submitted to demonstrate their identity, U.S. Citizenship, and/or Legal Residency Status. Additionally, given the hostility of the current administration, as well as efforts in States like Texas to obtain a “list” of Trans people or anyone who had previously changed their gender markers on licenses, we have serious concerns about Trans people “outing” themselves to this regime.
What is not affected by the Executive Order?
- Name changes: Legal name changes are not addressed in the Executive Order and, furthermore, are firmly protected by the 1st Amendment.
- Gender-affirming care coverage under Medicaid/Medicare: This is not addressed in the Executive Order. While we do anticipate attacks on gender-affirming care, a large part of health insurance coverage is determined and regulated at the state level. In Washington State, we have passed legislation—the Gender-Affirming Treatment Act of 2022—which protects insurance coverage in Apple Health and private health plans alike. While Medicaid and Medicare are federal programs, we believe there will be strong court challenges to attempts to restrict or revoke gender-affirming care.
- Sports Participation for Trans athletes participating in K-12 and college sports teams in accordance with their gender.
- Employment Discrimination: The Supreme Court made clear in Bostock v. Clayton County that Trans people are covered under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the federal level. This Executive Order cannot change that ruling. Similarly, in Washington State, employment, educational settings, housing, public accommodations, and credit are covered by the Washington Law Against Discrimination. If you experience discrimination in any of these areas, please contact the Washington Human Rights Commission or your city or county civil rights office.
How do we fight this?
We fully anticipate our national legal partners such as Lambda Legal, ACLU, Transgender Law Center, GLAAD, and Human Rights Campaign will file legal challenges to the Executive Order or portions of it as it is implemented. Because legal challenges require significant consideration and study, we expect it may take a few weeks as legal groups need to consider several factors, such as:
- Who are the right plaintiffs who have standing?
- What is the right jurisdiction to file in?
- What is the best legal argument to dismantle the Executive Order—especially given the current Supreme Court’s seeming unwillingness to apply the 14th Amendment to our community?
- What policies have been issued by federal agencies, and do these policies need to be attacked individually or can they be addressed as a whole?
While it can be scary and frustrating to see this Executive Order go into effect, we support our legal partners taking the time necessary to file the strongest lawsuit(s) that our communities can muster, as losing at the Supreme Court level on an Executive Order could make matters worse by setting our community back decades.
What can I do?
We at Gender Justice League believe that there are many ways to confront the bigotry, hatred, and unconstitutional attacks coming from the President of the United States. Here are our recommendations:
Do not obey in advance: While this order may sound scary, it should not prevent you from living your life; seeking the rights and benefits you are due under the law; seeking to legally change your name or gender marker on identity documents; or expecting your identity to be respected by the federal government and it’s employees. In Autocratic countries, dictators often rely on the population obeying in advance—which, in this case, would mean not attempting to change your documents as a result of the Executive Order alone.
Accurately represent your truth + document interactions with federal officials in seeking name or gender marker changes or recognition of your identity documents. It is our belief that under the 10th Amendment, it is the State of Washington (or other supportive states) that determines a person’s gender on birth certificates, identity documents, and licenses—and that the federal government does not have this power directly outlined in the constitution to determine a person’s gender. If you are denied a name or gender marker change, please contact us.
Keep Living: We strongly support TwoSpirit, Trans, and Gender Diverse people in living our lives as we normally would—seeking the rights owed to us by our government, and forcing the government to deny any requests for legal recognition. We believe that living our lives well, with joy, and sharing our experiences and how discrimination by the federal government hurts us, we directly help to change hearts and minds. As we saw with same-sex marriage, public opinion about LGBTQI+ people can change.
Trans people have always existed and will always exist. No person or government could ever erase us, and we are not going anywhere.