Trump’s lawfare to eradicate transgender existence echoes historical crimes against humanity
Trans people aren’t the administration’s only targets, though they are being targeted the most intensely. The Trump administration has also issued orders declaring initiatives to promote equity and inclusion as illegal, cynically using the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to argue that, in the administration’s words, “Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws” and that such initiatives are “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral.” By appending an “A” for accessibility to “DEI”, the president has signaled his administration’s willingness to directly target disabled people and the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well.
The administration is trying to executively overturn the clear provisions of the 14th amendment to the constitution- which provide automatic, birthright citizenship to all persons born in the United States or its territories- regardless of the origin, status, or allegiance of their parents. Nobody is safe once fascism arrives.
On January 29th, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt held a press briefing explaining the administration’s position on the large number of executive actions President Trump signed in the first week of his administration.
In the context of the attempted federal funding freeze and the other executive orders, Leavitt stated, “It means no more funding for illegal DEI programs. It means no more funding for the Green New Scam that has ta- — cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. It means no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies. No more funding for Green New Deal social engineering policies.”
The words of Trump’s administration are framed in half-truths, at best – outright lies at worst. The Green New Deal was never passed, “wokeness” and “DEI” have become reactionary euphemisms for civil rights and “transgenderism” as a term is almost exclusively used by those allied with the Gender Critical movement.
Yet, the administration’s actions are largely illegal and highly irregular.
As published by POLITICO, according to Aziz Huq, a legal scholar who teaches law at the University of Chicago, “Neither the signing statements nor executive orders of earlier administrations resemble this devil-may-care attitude toward federal laws. Neither implies the president has the open-ended authority to single out, for any reason or no reason, a congressionally mandated fund — and to nix it.”
One of the president’s multiple executive actions targeting transgender people for the “crime” of living their lives stated, “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”
The executive branch has declared that its resources will be committed to end trans existence- in other words persecute and kill trans people- through force.
In plain terms, when the powerful state a group of people “must end”, the end results generally include massive formal and informal violence directed at that group sanctioned by both law and rhetoric. The President of the United States has one of the biggest bully pulpits in the world, further amplifying the potential for violence.
The Trump administration has issued a memorandum to the CDC, ordering a full purge of knowledge of science regarding transgender people and HIV. The orders go so far as to demand revision, destruction, or retraction to erase all related knowledge in affiliated science journals.
According to prior reporting by the Independent UK, as of 2020, HIV is spreading at larger rates among heterosexuals than queer people. Additionally, “heterosexual people were more likely to be diagnosed late, at a stage when damage to their immune systems had already begun.” This is likely driven by the misconception that heterosexual couples and cis women are not at risk of HIV- when everyone is at risk of contracting HIV.
Nazi Germany went after trans people first. The first Nazi book burnings were to destroy knowledge produced by the Institute for Sexual Science run by Magnus Hirschfield, a Jewish researcher of sex, sexuality, and gender.
The methods are different, but the aims are the same – eradication. Deleting scientific articles hosted digitally may not evoke the same imagery of horror as burning books directly- however it does demonstrate an eerily similar genocidal intent.
The Trump administration’s executive orders have led to an outright ban on transgender people receiving passports. Recent reporting has recorded an alarming trend wherein trans women are having their identity documents seized while being threatened with arrest when trying to interact with federal offices.
On February 3, 2025, the Trump administration released a statement brazenly bragging that several hospitals and health systems across the country are already and preemptively complying with the administration’s executive action to end healthcare for trans people. Those hospital systems include ones here in Colorado, specifically Denver Health and UC Health. The administration concluded the statement with “Promises made, promises kept.”
The Metropolitan reached out to Denver Health for comment on their actions to end healthcare for trans people under 19. They responded in an official statement, “Denver Health is committed to and deeply concerned for the health and safety of our gender diverse patients under the age of 19 in light of the executive order regarding youth gender-affirming care.
“We recognize this order will impact gender-diverse youth, including increased risk of depression, anxiety and suicidality, and we are very concerned about these potential consequences. We are working to understand and comply with the full implications of the broadly worded order. Guidance on changes to medical care is being handled privately so that we can best support our patients and their families.”
In other words, Denver Health is willing to admit to the press that they know their withholding of care will cause suicides, and they’re complying regardless. This aggressive compliance with the executive action targeting healthcare is likely to leave a large body count of dead kids.
Denver Health’s statement continued, “The executive order which was issued on January 28, 2025 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, and the executive order specifically states that should we not comply, our participation in these programs is at risk.”
Constitutionally, the “power of the purse”- or the power and authority to direct, authorize, and appropriate federal spending lies with Congress and not the executive branch. On January 31st, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser released an official statement describing the illegality of President Trump’s administration attempting to seize the power of the purse.
“The unilateral order from the White House cutting critical federal program funding was wrong and it was illegal. We sued, and today a judge temporarily blocked it from going into effect. The White House’s illegal order created considerable confusion and would have had immediate harmful impacts on Coloradans who depend on federal programs for basic needs.”
Returning to Denver Health’s statement on their pre-emptive compliance with Trump’s illegal actions, Denver Health claimed, “The loss of this funding would critically impair our ability to provide care for the Denver community. Denver Health is proud to be one of a very small number of providers of comprehensive care services to all of our patients including to LGBTQ+ and gender-diverse patients. As we navigate the order’s requirements, we will continue to provide primary and behavioral health care to all impacted youth and will work to maintain the level of trust we have built with the LGBTQ+ community.”
However, anyone or any institution truly committed to “maintain the level of trust [they] have built with the LGBTQ+ community”, would not rush out the gates to preemptively comply with illegal executive actions immediately. Rather, they would work to challenge the executive actions via lawsuit or other means.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, in 2022, released a statement asserting that the transphobic “Gender Critical” movement is a genocidal one.
“Genocidal ideologies are ideologies that deny or seek to erase the existence of a specific group because of the supposed threat it poses to the holders of the ideology. The gender critical movement simultaneously denies that transgender identity is real and seeks to eradicate it completely from society. Many gender critical ideologues identify themselves as feminists and believe themselves to be protecting women from men.”
The statement continued, “The movement, a centerpiece of right wing ascendancy in the Western world, calls for discrimination against and harassment of transgender individuals and the transgender community through laws and policies that criminalize trans identity and trans life.”
The statement went further, “In the United States, the Republican Party has introduced a barrage of anti-transgender laws and policies in multiple states since 2016. … All these laws seek to create a society that is hostile to the very idea of trans identity and in which it is impossible to live openly and legally as a trans person.”
The Metropolitan spoke to Corinne Green, a trans activist, policy expert, and strategist who’s worked for state and national trans advocacy organizations and passed laws improving legal recognition and civil liberties for trans people.
Green said, “The circle of history is closing again. As fascism ascends in the United States, minority communities are all too familiar with the horrifying fact that Hitler studied and admired the American brutalization and oppression of Black and Indigenous people and sought to replicate our oppressive systems in Germany. As noted in James Q. Whitman’s “Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law,” Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf” that the United States had established a racial conception of citizenship by “excluding certain races from naturalization” and praised the Immigration Act of 1924. And, shamefully, historians credit California’s racial sterilization program as the direct inspiration for the Nazi equivalent.“
Tying the historical parallel to the now, she continued, “And, as with Hitler, Trump and Musk are obsessed with gender and sexuality as well as race. Given their particularly intense blitzkrieg on transgender existence, the parallels are impossible to ignore: In 1919 Germany, Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish sexologist, founded his Institute of Sexual Research in 1919, which served as a library, clinic pioneering transition-related treatment and surgery, and respite for LGBTQ people to connect with each other and learn about themselves. In 1933, Nazis raided the Institute, destroying and looting its collections, ultimately burning its library and archives, and in 1934 LGBTQ people began to be sent to concentration camps, and the Nazis created a specific wing of the Gestapo devoted to rooting them out, the Special Commission for Homosexuality in Berlin.”
Continuing, Green stated, “As the new administration unilaterally bans our healthcare, reverts our gender markers, confiscates identity documents, refuses us passports (even if you can afford to flee the country, which most of us of definitely can’t, you can’t flee persecution if your persecutors don’t let you leave!), bars us from military service, and more, and as valueless profit-seeking corporations distance themselves from their clearly cynical paper-thin acceptance, trans people desperately need committed, reliable allies. Many of us – especially longtime activists like me – are not going back in the closet, we are not going back into the wrong bathrooms, and we are not going back off the right hormones.”
Green also stressed the necessity of community. “Visibility is a shared community resource. Not all of us are adequately plugged into community, but all of us need to be ASAP, so remaining out and proud if it’s safe for you to do so to serve as a point of contact is more important than ever.”
Finally Green exhorted the value of diversity and solidarity, “We’ve all experienced the increase in anti-trans antagonization of the past several years and watched it metastasize into anti-trans law – this will only accelerate as the hate is pushed out from the highest tiers of government. While fascists recoil from diversity, it has always been our strength. So as much as possible, we must continue to show up for each other, and doubly so for the other vulnerable targets of this oppressive wave. Around the country, protests are underway in support of our immigrant neighbors. I hope to see you there.”
