“Compelling federally-funded schools to disrespect the identities of LGBTQ+ youth, particularly trans youth, not only opens them up to harassment, bullying, and abuse, but in fact encourages it.”
Continuing his unprecedented attack on the LGBTQ+ community, and especially on transgender youth, President Trump today signed yet another anti-LGBTQ+ executive order, this one an out-and-out attack on LGBTQ+ and transgender students, as well as the educators, counselors, and school officials who treat such students with dignity and respect.
The order issued today requires schools to deny the existence of transgender people altogether. It would ban federally-funded educational institutions from respecting the identities of trans and gender non-conforming students, blocking them from using the correct restroom or participating in interscholastic athletics (sports teams), and compelling schools to inform a student’s parents or guardian if the student requests to be referred to with a different name or pronoun, regardless of whether such a notification could put the student at risk of harm. The order also requires schools to teach students so-called “patriotic education,” whitewashing the chapters of our nation’s documented history related to race, gender, sexism, homophobia, and related injustices.
Nicholas Hite, McDonald/Wright Senior Attorney, Lambda Legal, issued the following statement:
“Today, the Trump administration rolled out yet another executive order consisting of patently unconstitutional nonsense designed to demean transgender and all LGBTQ+ young people, deny their very existence, and cause them harm.
And this time, it is actively putting transgender and nonbinary youth in harm’s way in our nation’s public schools. Compelling federally-funded schools to disrespect the identities of LGBTQ+ youth, particularly trans youth, not only opens them up to harassment, bullying, and abuse, but in fact encourages it. And forcing schools to teach a skewed and fictitious version of history that denies our nation’s past injustices compounds the lawlessness of this order.
“Bans on using the correct restrooms threaten the safety and health of transgender and nonbinary youth. Denying the opportunity to participate in school sports programs with their classmates deprives them of the many opportunities and developmental benefits all agree come from joining in team sports. And compelling teachers to tell parents about a student’s in-school request that a chosen name or pronoun be used —contrary to the student’s wishes—can expose the student to violence in the home, as well as violating both the student’s independent rights and teachers’ freedom of speech and professional duties of care to their students.
“Lambda Legal is taking a hard look at the details of this horrific executive order, as we have done with the other executive orders targeting our community that have been spewing out of this administration, and is actively considering potential courses of action. We fought the first Trump administration when it attacked us repeatedly, and we won again and again. We have no intention of backing down from the fight with Trump 2.0.”