Trump details plans for draconian crackdown on trans rights in chilling ‘transgender lunacy’ speech

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to stop so-called “transgender lunacy” on the first day of his new administration, vowing to oust trans people from practically every area of public life.

“With the stroke of my pen on day one we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy,” Trump said at a Turning Point USA event for young conservatives in Phoenix, Arizona on Sunday (22 December).

The Republican, who will return to the White House in January after beating Democrat Kamala Harris in the November presidential election, went on to say it will be the official policy of the United States government “that there are only two genders, male and female.”

“I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools,” he told the cheering crowd of GOP voters, vowing to also “keep men out of women’s sports.”

This “transgender lunacy” rhetoric typifies what has been an increasingly hostile few weeks in US politics for the trans community.

In November, just a couple of weeks after his week, reports surfaced suggesting Trump is planning to reintroduce his ban on transgender people serving in the US military “on day one”, a move which could see thousands of qualified service people removed from their posts.

The first transgender military ban was first imposed in 2019, before being overturned by president Joe Biden in 2021, and was described as “harmful” and “backwards.”

At the same time, South Carolina Republican representative Nancy Mace caused shockwaves when she tabled a proposal to restrict access to single-sex spaces based on “corresponding biological sex”, later admitting she only introduced the resolution because of incoming Democrat Sarah McBride.

McBride will become the first trans person in congress when she takes up her seat in January after winning the election for Delaware’s at-large district.

At the beginning of December, the United States Supreme Court then heard arguments in a landmark case concerning the availability of gender affirming healthcare for trans youth.

After a bill which bans gender-affirming care for trans youngsters, including puberty blockers, was passed by lawmakers in Tennessee the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal and filed a legal complaint alongside a number of families who have trans kids.

Whilst the US v Skrmetti case will specifically determine whether the ban in Tennessee is lawful, it will no doubt be used to set a precedent across the country and could determine if trans healthcare bans in other states could stand or be repelled.

Last week, in a further blow to trans youth, the US senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, with a provision to bar the US military’s healthcare plan for those in service from providing gender affirming care to the children of service people.

The latest iteration of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual piece of legislation which outlines military spending and budgets, the clause will halt Tricare from issuing “medical interventions” to those under the age of 18 “for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilisation”.

In the run up to the election in November, Trump’s campaign trail was littered with anti-trans rhetoric and outright fake news.

At rallies, Trump alleged that Harris wanted to perform “transgender operations on illegal aliens” in prison, that the US education system is now “mostly transgender” and that school pupils are undergoing gender-affirming surgeries during the school day.

His running-mate, and now incoming vice-president, JD Vance also made the bizarre claim that the reason for falling maths levels is in the US is because they can instead name “87 genders”.

“Well, now we’ve got American children who can’t add five plus five, but they can tell you that there are 87 different genders and I think both of those things are related,” the Ohio senator told Lance Wallnau, a right-wing anti-LGBTQ+ evangelical preacher.