by Gillian Branstetter | January 22, 2025

Donald Trump was re-elected president on a wave of attacks against women and transgender people. Anti-transgender politicians spent more than $215 million on ads scapegoating trans people and promoting a Project 2025 agenda that threatens to rollback reproductive freedom and punish people for departing from archaic gender roles. On his first day back in office, President Trump signed a far-reaching executive order requiring federal agencies to discriminate against transgender people by denying who they are and threatening the freedom of self-determination and self-expression for all.

In 2020, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County affirming that discrimination against someone because they are LGBTQ is sex discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said: “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” Trump also withdrew an executive order issued by former President Joe Biden directing federal agencies to enforce this court ruling as applied to all laws prohibiting sex discrimination.

We all deserve the freedom to be ourselves, including the right to determine what’s right for our bodies and lives. Trump’s sex discrimination mandate threatens to deny that freedom to transgender people across the country while forcing everyone else to sacrifice their own freedom and privacy, too.

What Does the Order Say?

Trump’s signed order states: “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.  These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” The order defines terms like “man” and “woman” based on whether a person “at conception” belongs “to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell” or that “produces the small reproductive cell.”

Trump’s order then directs federal agencies to “enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations” using his cramped definitions, including designating sex on passports and other federal identification documents, or determining where transgender people are confined in federal custody. The order also includes a sweeping mandate to all agencies to “end the Federal funding of gender ideology.” Of course, the order does not explain what that means or how agencies would accomplish such a task.

For decades, feminist legal scholars and women’s rights advocates have opposed efforts to define gender based strictly on biology. Recent state laws that use these definitions to discriminate against transgender people have resulted in invasive and traumatizing efforts to determine who “counts” as a man or as a woman, targeting youth who are even suspected of being transgender because they do not conform to sex stereotypes. This order likewise ignores the existence of intersex people and others with variations in sex characteristics beyond the overly-simplistic definitions Trump endorsed.

What Does the Order Do?

Very few executive orders change policy immediately, and they cannot change laws passed by Congress or protections guaranteed by the Constitution. As of January 21, 2025 it is unclear how the Trump administration will enforce this order as applied to educational settings, health care access, housing, federally-funded programs, and many other areas where federal law or policy references “sex” or “gender.”

Some of the most immediate impacts will likely be felt by the more than 2,000 transgender people currently held in federal custody. The order specifically calls on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to ignore the guidelines of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) and enforce a blanket policy forcing transgender women into men’s prisons and detention centers against their will. This puts them at a severely heightened risk of sexual assault and abuse by other incarcerated persons and prison staff. The order also mandates that BOP withdraw critical health care from trans people in federal prison.

We also expect to see immediate impacts on access to updated sex designations on U.S. passports. Transgender people frequently update the sex designation on documents like birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and passports to reflect their gender identity rather than the sex they were assigned at birth. Requiring transgender peoples’ passports to show the sex they were assigned at birth effectively outs them as transgender whenever they have to present the document.

Soon after the order was issued, a Trump administration official told a reporter that the policy impacting gender markers on U.S. passports would not apply retroactively for current passport holders. Trump’s order will, however, prevent transgender and intersex people from obtaining new passports, visas, and trusted traveler documents that reflect who they are and how they are perceived in the world.

The State Department recently said that all applications for gender change are “suspended.” Because people have to provide their existing passport and other documents to update their passport, if people attempt to update the sex designation on their passport now, they run the risk of not having a valid passport at all while the passport is out of their possession.

What Happens Next?

We expect the order may be enforced in other contexts, such as in public schools and sex-separated spaces. It may also be used to limit workplace protections and to limit federally-funded programs that provide access for gender-affirming health care. If federal agencies and departments act to make those risks a reality, the ACLU and other LGBTQ rights organizations will fight them every step of the way.

Originally published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — https://www.aclu.org/

The rally also represented a convergence of many local groups in coalition with each other, organizations that had connections with each other through the Springfield-Eugene Anti-Imperialist Coalition (SEAIC). Justin Filip, Pacific Green Party (PGP) Congressional candidate for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District, spoke at the event, as well as Sam, a member of the local chapter of Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and Efron, a member of the University of Oregon chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP). 8 other organizations supported the event, including JVP Eugene, University of Oregon chapters of Students and Faculty/Staff for Justice in Palestine (SJP/FSJP) and UO Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Coffee Revolution Eugene, Planet vs. Pentagon (PvP), Eugene chapter of Veterans for Peace (VfP), making 13 supporting organizations in total.

The rally kicked off with a speech from Kamryn Stringfield, which called out corporate pride events, the capitalization on LGBT+ movement, and of course the pinkwashing narratives regarding Palestine, Ukraine and more. On the pinkwashing in Palestine, she said 

“I’ve written before in our publication, the Stonewall Lives! Bulletin, how Israel is a key example of pinkwashing. Israel presents itself to the world as a haven for LGBT+ people, a safe refuge for us just like they promise to Jewish people through Zionism. While LGBT+ rights are somewhat better in Israel than other Middle Eastern countries, they are increasingly becoming under attack by the most extreme forces in the Israeli political arena and this ignores the plight of the Palestinian people and the ways in which apartheid, occupation, ethnic cleansing, racism, settlement, bombardment, starvation, scholasticide and much more are impacting the LGBT+ Palestinians. They aren’t supportive of us “In the name of love” as one IOF soldier holding a banner in the bloody ruins of Gaza put it, but rather they use it for their propaganda demonizing Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. Much of this propaganda is targeted at Americans and other westerners.

They repeat the same old talking points about how Palestinians and Arabs hate gays and how Hamas will throw you off of a roof or shoot you against a wall. They claim you cannot live life openly as LGBT+ in Gaza without violence. Ironically right now, this is true. Life for anyone in Gaza right now is hell because of the genocide. This aside, these claims have very little evidence to them and are based on western colonial tropes about Arab society that don’t fully accurately reflect it and there are plenty of examples of LGBT+ people living in Palestine openly…”

She then called on all progressive LGBT+ organizations to take a stance against the genocide, call for a ceasefire and uplift the voices of LGBT+ Palestinian and Jewish people. She specifically called upon one local organization, saying “Transponder that means you, especially!”

Kamryn closed her speech by talking about how pinkwashing occurs in other areas like Europe, saying:

“I want to briefly tell you that pinkwashing is not just limited to Israel, even in the present moment. This technique is used against plenty of other Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, all being bombed by Israel, US and UK as the genocide in Palestine continues. They use it against Iran, China, North Korea, Russia and more as well. NATO acts like it and all of its member states are havens for the LGBT+ community and that it is a vanguard for our rights. NATO and the Banderite government in Ukraine invoke pinkwashing in their war against Russia and the peoples of the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile they ignore the violent oppression of LGBT+ people in Poland, Italy, Turkey and more. Even with Taiwan and Hong Kong can we see pinkwashing playing out as a western tool against China. We have to be cognizant of this international phenomenon and not let the imperialists use our oppression here or anywhere else to justify economic or military consequences against countries or people that won’t conform to our interests. We have to be careful with our solidarity and understand how our voices and bodies can best be used for the LGBT+ struggle here and in the places the west interferes in.”

She also briefly gave a shout out to Cuba and Vietnam for non-western countries that have made strides on the issue that seldom get referenced in mainstream media, and got the crowd to chant “Cuba Si, Bloqueo No!” against the illegal economic blockade of Cuba.

Other speakers touched on different aspects of pinkwashing. The speaker from PSL called out the hypocrisy of religious zealots who are the most ardent defenders of Israel suddenly acting like they care for the well-being of LGBT+ community, and connected the LGBT+ struggle to the struggle against the imperialism as a whole. Justin Filip from the PGP talked about the history of the Green party’s support for Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) and the Palestinian struggle, the history of dehumanization as a tool to justify oppression in the United States, and his experiences with pro-Palestine activism at the University of Oregon and being placed on administrative leave as a result of it. The speaker from Jewish Voices for Peace spoke about the reality on the ground in Palestine and how they felt about that and about pride during genocide, how queer liberation and Palestinian liberation were connected and about how our LGBT+ elders paved the way for our current struggle.

After wrapping up the speeches and Kamryn explaining the next action for the event, the protesters began marching through the Saturday Farmers Market in downtown Eugene, carrying the PLUS Banner in the front and Palestinian flags and pride flags while reciting several kinds of chants. Some were new and LGBT+ based, like “No Pride in Genocide”, “We won’t let you use our pride, as an excuse for genocide”, “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Pinkwashing has got to go”, “Queers and allies, we won’t hide, there’s no pride in genocide” and more. Some were standard Palestine chants, like “Free, Free, Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Signs said things like “Silence = Death”, “NATO and Israel are both white and blue, neither of them give a damn about you”, “Gays for Gaza” and more. A table was also brought for literature from different organizations, including the PLUS brochure and Spring-Summer 2024 edition of the Stonewall Lives! Bulletin.

Overall, this rally was a brilliant display of coalition-building, of anti-imperialist solidarity and of the presence of PLUS now as a working-class LGBT+ organization. You can watch the footage below captured by a local videographer. Stay tuned for updates on PLUS at pride events.

The Peoples LGBT+ United Society (PLUS) wanted to have a Pride event that was political but also accessible to the working class and spoke up against pinkwashing especially at a time when it is being invoked by Zionists carrying out a genocide in Palestine to justify their crimes. Our National Director, Kamryn Stringfield – who resides in Eugene, OR – got to work at the beginning of June to organize a rally and helped to build an impressive coalition of over a dozen supporting local organizations behind this for a wide showing of solidarity.

Supporting organizations/coalitions at this time are Springfield Eugene Anti-Imperialist Coalition (SEAIC), Eugene chapters of Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), Pacific Green Party (PGP), Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), and Veterans for Peace (VFP), University of Oregon chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP UO), Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (UO FSJP), Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP UO) and Young Democratic Socialists of America (UO YDSA), Eugene Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Planet vs Pentagon (PvP), and Coffee Revolution Eugene.

The rally will take place at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza in front of the Lane County Courthouse on 8th Ave at 2:00 pm PDT to 4:00 pm PDT and will include speeches from Kamryn Stringfield and representatives of PGP, PSL and JVP UO. (By the way, if you didn’t know, Wayne Morse was one of 2 US Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution during the Vietnam War). We invite attendees to bring signs and flags related to the LGBT+ struggle and the Palestinian struggle. We also highly recommend that our attendees wear face masks.

Pictures and videos will be taken at the event and we will report to all of our members across the country when it is over! We are also going out to Pride Events all across the country this month and throughout the summer! We just gave out brochures at Grants Pass Pride in rural Josephine County, Oregon and are preparing to attend events in California, New York, Oregon and Washington!