#executive order 14168

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Democrats Merkley and Balint file bill to nullify Trump's anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders

The No Place for LGBTQ+ Hate Act targets the trans military ban, the "two sexes" order, and more.

Trudy Ring at The Advocate:

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont, both Democrats, have introduced legislation to nullify Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders. The No Place for LGBTQ+ Hate Act, introduced Thursday, would ensure that Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ orders would have no force or effect and that no federal funds would be used to put them into effect. During his second term, Trump has issued executive orders saying the federal government will recognize only two sexes, male and female as assigned at birth, therefore denying the existence of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people; reinstating and expanding the trans military ban; seeking to prevent trans youth from receiving gender-affirming care; seeking to keep trans students from participating in sports under their gender identity; and requiring schools to deny the existence of trans people. Policies based on these orders have been implemented, and most are being challenged in court. “Freedom is the right to safely live as your authentic self without fear of harassment, discrimination, or violence,” Merkley said in a press release. “President Trump and Republicans are attacking our LGBTQ+ neighbors, friends, and family members by rubberstamping discrimination in every aspect of daily life. As we mark Pride Month this year, we say ‘hell no’ to this hate and honor those who have fought for LGBTQ+ equality by never giving up on the vision of America as a land of freedom for all.” “Trump cannot take away our rights or our health care just with the stroke of a pen,” Balint added. “I’m standing with Senator Merkley and my colleagues to show the Trump administration that their hate and dehumanizing rhetoric targeting queer Americans doesn’t intimidate us. We won’t back down when it comes to protecting our rights. No matter how much they try to erase us and our history, LGBTQI+ people are valued members of every community across this country.” Their bill has numerous cosponsors in both the House and Senate, all Democrats except for one independent, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats. It’s endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign, Advocates for Trans Equality, American Civil Liberties Union, National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, Reproductive Freedom for All, and Planned Parenthood.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) file a bill to nullify Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ extremist executive orders called the No Place for LGBTQ+ Hate Act.

[justinssportscorner]

Trump’s Department of Education wants NCAA to strip awards, records from trans student-athletes

The NCAA earlier bowed to Trump’s request to ban trans student-athletes from competing in sports aligned with their gender identity.

Donald Padgett at Advocate:

The Department of Education is urging the NCAA to strip awards and records from transgender athletes. The NCAA last month banned transgender student-athletes from participating in sports aligned with their gender identity. “Because of President Trump’s bold leadership, men will no longer be allowed to compete in women’s sports regardless of how they identify, and the NCAA has correctly changed its tune on its discriminatory practices against female athletes,” Candice Jackson, deputy general counsel for the DOE, said in a statement. “The next necessary step is to restore athletic records to women who have for years been devalued, ignored, and forced to watch men steal their accolades.” President Donald Trump has targeted transgender rights in a series of executive orders in the first days of his second administration. One of the orders signed on January 20, his first day in office, entitled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” defined sex as male or female based on the “immutable biological reality of sex.” On January 29, he signed an order entitled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” which barred schools that receive federal funding allowing trans students from participating in sports, using bathrooms and changing facilities, and choosing pronouns that align with their gender identity. [...] The new request would affect the awards and records of University of Pennsylvania trans woman swimmer Lia Thomas, who made history in 2022 as the first transgender NCAA Division I champion when she won the 500-yard freestyle event. The NCAA did not indicate whether it will honor the new request. Meanwhile, Jackson made clear her department will continue to target the transgender community. “The Trump Education Department will do everything in our power to right this wrong and champion the hard-earned accomplishments of past, current, and future female collegiate athletes,” Jackson said.

This is an egregious act of anti-trans history revisionism, all done to appease anti-trans extremists such as Riley Gaines.

See Also:

NBC News: Education Dept. urges NCAA to reverse transgender athletes' records, titles and awards

Outsports: Stripping sports titles and awards from trans women is a sick attempt to erase history

AP: Dept of Education asks NCAA, high schools to erase records set by transgender athletes

LGBTQ Nation: Trump’s Department of Education demands all transgender athletes be stripped of records & titles

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

Lady Gaga Declares 'Trans People Are Not Invisible' in Grammy Speech

Lady Gaga declared that trans people "are not invisible" and "deserve love" at this year's Grammys.

Tomás Mier at Rolling Stone:

Lady Gaga used the Grammy stage to stand up for trans rights. While accepting the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance award for “Die With a Smile,” the pop star made a bold statement about transgender rights, drawing a standing ovation. “It’s such an honor to sing for all of you. I just want to say tonight that trans people are not invisible. Trans people deserve love,” Gaga said onstage with Bruno Mars. “The queer community deserves to be lifted up. Music is love.” Gaga’s comments come as President Donald Trump targeted the transgender community as soon as he took office last month. He signed an executive order rolling back trans and LGBTQ protections,  claiming that “‘female’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,” and “‘male’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.” In addition to only recognizing two sexes, the executive order also directs the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to “require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex.”  Gaga — who covered The Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin” with Mars earlier in the night — has long been a voice for the LGBTQ community and has dedicated her philanthropy efforts with the Born This Way Foundation to LGBTQ youth. (The namesake song of the foundation shouts out “transgender lives.”)

Glad to see Lady Gaga take a bold stand for trans rights and trans people on the Grammys stage Sunday. 🏳️‍⚧️

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Lady Gaga, Chappell Roan, Alicia Keys shout out trans rights & equality at the Grammys

[no-more-hide]

As long as you still have penis and testicles, you are belonging to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell, which is called „man“. You must therefore use the urinal in the men's toilet. So says Executive Order 14168.

Staatliche Stellen müssen … sicherstellen, dass intime Räume für Frauen, Mädchen oder Frauen (oder für Männer, Jungen oder Männer) nach Geschlecht und nicht nach Identität ausgewiesen sind. (Executive Order 14168 Sec 4 d) Solange du noch Penis und Hoden hast, gehörst du zu dem Geschlecht, das die kleine Fortpflanzungszelle produziert, und wirst als als „Mann“ bezeichnet wird. Du musst daher das Urinal in der Herrentoilette benutzen. So sagt Executive Order 14168.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trump Took Stonewall’s Trans Flags. New Yorkers Brought Their Own.

It is impossible to separate the transgender community from the history of Stonewall, no matter how hard the government may try.

S. Baum at Erin In The Morning:

The Trump Administration removed trans flags—as well as flags honoring Black and brown queer communities—from the Stonewall National Monument, but New Yorkers aren’t having it. As the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprisings that define the LGBTQ liberation movement as we know it today, the landmark falls under federal jurisdiction. This means when the Trump Administration took the White House, the memorial to queer resistance became subject to the whims of a certain orange demagogue hellbent on the modern-day digital book burning of transgender history and life itself.

Enter Steven Love Menendez, an artist, filmmaker, and LGBTQ activist (or, as his bio now reads on government websites, “LGB activist,” much to his chagrin). For almost a decade now, he’s celebrated pride in New York City by placing flags around the perimeter. Eventually, the National Parks Service (NPS) took notice and provided him funding for the yearly installation, which involves 250 flags.

As time went on, Menendez included the Progress Pride flag—whose design nods to queer activists of color, as well as those lost to the HIV/AIDS crisis—as well as the trans Pride flag.

But this year, Menendez was told only the “original” Pride flag would be allowed, as per federal regulations imposed by President Trump. This was not only for his installation, but for the nautical flag at the park’s center. Where the gay pride flag and trans pride flag once used to billow side-by-side, only the rainbow remains. “Excluding the flag is basically excluding trans people,” Menendez told Erin in the Morning. “By having the trans flags, you’re heightening trans visibility. By taking it away and somehow trying to take away trans visibility—I think that's a problem. You're somehow saying there's something wrong with them.” This comes after the Trump Administration sought to expel any reference to transgender people from all federal resources, as per his January executive orders. As Erin in the Morning previously reported, one glaring example included an informational blurb about Sylvia Rivera, a trans woman of color and street queen who was among the founding mothers of the movement.

“At a young age, Sylvia began fighting for gay and transgender rights,” the original NPS website read. The revised version reads, “gay and rights,” with the word “transgender” removed entirely, rendering the sentence nonsensical. Nevertheless, however, the trans community has persisted. Menendez says he comes to Stonewall everyday during Pride month to maintain the flag installation—flags may get accidentally knocked down or blown away, which isn’t uncommon. But this year, in defiance of the disappeared trans flags, New Yorkers have been bringing their own, he and other sources said. Those making the pilgrimage to the site have draped the trans flag upon the park’s statues, drawn messages of affirmation in chalk, and placed stickers around the perimeter. “Unauthorized” trans flags have cropped up from the soil through the fence, CBS reported.

The Trump Regime’s erasure of trans people and the trans flags-- especially at Stonewall National Monument-- has inspired people to fight back with brining trans flags. 🏳️‍⚧️

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: NYC’s Stonewall monument excludes trans flags this year, but activists are defying the ban

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trans National Guard employee in Illinois sues Trump over restroom ban

LeAnne Withrow, a civilian employee of the Illinois National Guard, says she believes it's never the wrong time to do the right thing.

Trudy Ring at The Advocate:

LeAnne Withrow always wanted to be in the military, like her father and grandfather, and she fulfilled that ambition by serving as a soldier in the Illinois National Guard from 2010 to 2023, receiving many honors for her work. Now she’s a civilian employee of the Guard, still being recognized for outstanding service, but a Trump administration policy is making her life difficult by restricting where she can perform basic bodily functions. Withrow is transgender, having come out about a decade ago, and until recently, she could use the women’s restrooms at Camp Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, where she is stationed, and the 12 other Guard facilities she visits as part of her job as lead military and family readiness specialist. That all changed when Donald Trump issued his executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which, among other thing,s directs federal agencies to exclude trans and intersex people from single-sex spaces that align with their gender identity. Withrow filed a class action lawsuit in November against the Trump administration in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, contending that the exclusionary restroom policy violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. In its 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, the U.S. Supreme Court found that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. It names as defendants numerous administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. She is represented by Democracy Forward, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of D.C., and the ACLU of Illinois. She filed the suit after receiving no resolution from the complaints she filed with the Army National Guard Bureau Equal Opportunity Office and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She didn’t really expect satisfaction from those agencies, given that they’re under the Trump administration.

[...] She’s “one of those oddballs” who didn’t join the military in order to get money for college or because she needed a job, Withrow says. “I really, truly wanted to give back to the United States and to my community, and the National Guard seemed like the best way to do that,” she explains. “I always wanted to serve, and it was the privilege of a lifetime to be able to serve in the National Guard for 13 years and do the things that I got to do there, meet the people that I met. But really, it was about service to others, which I think is an important thing for all of us to keep in mind and something we should dedicate a little bit of our time to every day.”

When Withrow took the military’s aptitude test, she scored in the 99th percentile, and the recruiter told her she could be an astronaut. But she chose to enter as a cook, “because it’s sort of the definition of serving others, right?” she says. Then she moved into public affairs and was a military photojournalist, and she eventually rose to the rank of staff sergeant and chief public affairs officer. She participated in military exercises in South Korea, Jordan, Alaska, and elsewhere. She served at the 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in 2016. She helped with flood duty in 2019 with Operation Ready Response, with civil disturbance missions in Chicago, and COVID-related operations at the height of the pandemic.

LeAnne Withrow, a trans Illinois National Guard employee, sues the Trump Regime over its policies banning trans people from using restrooms aligned with their gender identity.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Trans military worker barely eats or drinks to avoid work bathrooms. She’s suing the Trump admin.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judge orders Defense Department to return books on race & gender to school shelves - LGBTQ Nation

A judge sided with 12 students who sued for the right to access age-appropriate books on the topics.

John Russell at LGBTQ Nation:

The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) – which runs schools for more than 67,000 military-connected children – violated students’ First Amendment rights when it removed books and censored curricula related to race and gender in its schools, a federal judge ruled on Monday. U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles’s October 20 decision grants a preliminary injunction sought by 12 students who attend DoDEA schools, blocking the agency from enforcing three of President Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-DEI executive orders and requiring schools to return nearly 600 books to classroom and library shelves while the case proceeds. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Kentucky, and the ACLU of Virginia filed a complaint on behalf of the 12 students and their families challenging DoDEA’s removal of books from its schools’ classrooms and libraries in response to Trump’s executive orders 14168, 14185, and 14190. The orders, according to the complaint, resulted in DoDEA’s censorship of age-appropriate curricula on race and gender, and its removal of materials that reference slavery, civil rights, race, ethnicity, immigration, diversity, sexual orientation, and gender identity in violation of students’ First Amendment rights. The complaint named DoDEA director Beth Schiavino-Narvaez and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as defendants.

According to the ACLU, books “quarantined” by DoDEA schools included classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and Fahrenheit 451, more recent titles like The Kite Runner, A Queer History of the United States, the children’s book Julián Is a Mermaid, and even Vice President JD Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy. Lawyers for the DOD reportedly argued that the removals constituted “government speech” and thus were shielded from First Amendment scrutiny. But Giles rejected that characterization, writing that it conflicts with school libraries’ purpose as sites of academic freedom and warning that such a characterization would be “dangerous” for intellectual freedom.

See Also:

The Advocate: Federal judge orders Pentagon to restore LGBTQ+ books, gender & diversity lessons in military schools

Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles issues order in E.K. v. DoDEA to return books that were wrongly quarantined-- especially those touching on race and gender-- to DoDEA school shelves.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

SecDef Hegseth Announces Trans Scouts In Scouting America Will Be Outed, Segregated

The policy is the latest in a trend of organizations capitulating to Trump over transgender people.

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

Nine years ago, the Boy Scouts of America announced that it would begin accepting transgender youth into the program. In 2018, it opened its doors to girls, and in 2024, it rebranded as Scouting America. Transgender scouts were welcomed to participate alongside peers matching their gender identity, and the organization built out initiatives to be inclusive to people of all identities and creeds. That all came to a crashing halt today, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the organization would be dropping all diversity initiatives, putting more emphasis on faith, and forcibly outing and segregating transgender scouts from their peers—forcing them to only be acknowledged by their assigned sex at birth and segregating them from peers of their gender.

“After 2012, however, the Boy Scouts lost their way and a once great organization became gravely wounded. Diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, crept in. The name was changed to Scouting America. Girls were accepted. The focus on God as the ruler of the universe was watered down to include openness to humanism and earth-centered pagan religions... They even welcomed the destructive myth of gender fluidity and transgenderism to infiltrate their membership,” Hegseth said in a video posted to Twitter. He then announced major changes at the organization, including new anti-transgender policies. “Scouting America has agreed to comply immediately with the provisions of executive order 14173. This includes reviewing and replacing politicized, divisive, and discriminatory language throughout the organization, programs, and all publications. No more DEI. Zero,” Hegseth said. “The Citizen in Society merit badge that encouraged scouts to explore diversity, equity, inclusion, and identity... that badge has been discontinued. Third, Scouting America will modify its policy to make clear that membership will be based solely on biological sex at birth and not gender identity. That means that the application, any application, will have only two sex designations, male and female, and the application must match the applicant’s birth certificate. Scouting will also make clear that biological boys and girls will not be allowed to occupy or share intimate spaces together, toilets, showers, tents, anywhere like that.”

He closed by saying that he wished Scouting America would return to not allowing girls in the program. “Ideally, I believe the Boy Scouts should go back to being the Boy Scouts, as originally founded, a group that develops boys into men. Maybe someday.”

The decision, if true, is devastating for transgender scouts. Trans boys who have been participating in boy troops—some for years—may be immediately removed and placed in girl troops, segregated from their friends and fellow scouts. Trans girls in girl troops may face the same fate, forced into troops matching their assigned sex at birth rather than their identity. Any transgender person who joins the scouts could be forcibly outed by the policy, as their assigned sex at birth will dictate their placement. The policy effectively reverses a precedent the organization set in 2017, when it began accepting transgender scouts after an eight-year-old trans boy in New Jersey was kicked out of his Cub Scout pack. That decision made the Boy Scouts one of the largest youth organizations in the country to welcome transgender members. The organization went even further in subsequent years, creating the Citizenship in Society merit badge and launching ArrowPride, its first official LGBTQ+ affinity space for scouts at national events. All of that has now reportedly been dismantled at the Pentagon's direction. Forced outing is a harmful practice. 

This is a disgraceful capitulation by Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts of America) to Pete Kegsbreath’s Pentagon.

Hegseth’s announcement stated that Scouting America will end DEI programs and segregate trans scouts according to their sex assigned at birth, reversing a 2017 decision to allow trans troops to join units correlating with their gender identity.

See Also:

The Advocate: Pete Hegseth declares that Scouting America will eliminate transgender tolerance & diversity programs

AP, via HuffPost: Transgender Youths Targeted In Scouting America Changes Pushed By Hegseth

Daily Kos: Hegseth turns War Department on the scouts