One of President Trump’s recently-signed executive orders has raised questions about the future of transgender women in prison.
On his first day back in office this week, Trump signed what’s titled the ‘Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government’ executive order, along with several others.
The order alleges that people having been trying to ‘eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being’.
With this in mind, Trump’s controversial order has been created to ‘defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male’.
There are several key parts of the order, one being that the Trump Administration will only accept that there are two genders — male and female.
“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” it adds.
Because of this, transgender women who are still seen as male (as per Trump’s new executive order) will no longer be able to be housed in female prisons.
President Trump signed a series of executive orders when returned to office (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
A clause of the order that looks at ‘Privacy in Intimate Spaces’ explains: “The Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention center.”
While some people have applauded the change, others have expressed their concerns for the LGBTQ+ community.
Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, told the New York Times: “There will be rapes and physical assaults because of this policy.
“It’s also terrible for prison officials, who right now have the authority to use discretion about what makes the most sense for the safety and security of the facility.”
Some have expressed concerns about trans prisoners in light of the change (Getty Stock Image)
On the other hand, the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) have hailed the order as a ‘victory’.
“WoLF has been fighting to get men out of women’s prisons for years, and we are thrilled to see the specific inclusion of women’s prisons in this order,” the organization penned in a statement shared to its website.
“The order directs the Attorney General to oversee the amendment of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) regulations to ensure men are not housed in women’s prisons. This is a major victory since PREA anticipates the housing of men in women’s facilities under certain circumstances, and this has presented a major issue for advocates of single-sex prisons.”
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the LGBT national hotline at 888-843-4564, available Monday to Friday 4pm-12am ET and 12pm-5pm ET on Saturdays.
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Topics: Transgender, Politics, Donald Trump, LGBTQ, News, US News
Donald Trump officially declared that there are ‘only two genders’ as he returned to the Oval Office, but the wording of his executive order could come back to bite him.
The executive order, signed on the first day of Trump’s second term in office, is presented as an order which will ‘defend women from gender ideology extremism and restore biological truth to the federal government’.
The order claims ‘ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex’ have ‘used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women’.
Trump signed his executive order on his first day in office (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Branding this as ‘wrong’, Trump’s order states: “Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”
The order goes on to give definitions for the terms ‘female’ and ‘male’, but in doing so, the order actually suggests that every human is a female.
It states: “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.”
If your biology classes have been long forgotten, then allow me to explain.
For the first few weeks after being conceived, all embryos look the same in a state called ‘unisex’. This state forms the blueprint for female bodies, and it’s not until about six weeks after conception that most people with an XY genotype will follow a male developmental process.
Twitter users quickly picked up on the inaccuracies (X)
A report published by the National Library of Medicine explains: “All human individuals—whether they have an XX, an XY, or an atypical sex chromosome combination—begin development from the same starting point. During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female.”
Though the team behind Trump’s executive order may not have caught this, people on Twitter certainly have.
“In case you missed it, Trump issued an executive order yesterday declaring all Americans’ gender is determined at the moment of conception. All human zygotes are female at the moment of conception. Donald Trump just created approximately 160 million F2M transgender people,” one person wrote after seeing the order.
Another commented: “Fun fact, the zygote is coded as female at conception so saying sex is defined at conception like Trumps executive order stats means we’re all assigned female at conception. It takes 6-7 weeks of gestation for sex to determine your assigned gender at birth. Let’s go girls!”
When push comes to shove, it’s likely any officials interpreting the order would form an opinion based on its intended meaning rather than the scientific meaning.
But there’s no escaping the irony that in his attempt to stop men from ‘self-identifying as women’, Trump accidentally assigned them all a new gender.
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Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/The Washington Post/Getty Images/JIM WATSON
Topics: Politics, Donald Trump, Science, LGBTQ
President Donald Trump has reportedly put a ban on the Black Lives Matter and Pride flags just days after taking office.
President Trump has begun his presidential journey with a loud bang.
Trump signed off on 25 executive orders, which included halting the ban of TikTok, changing laws on immigration, and declaring that there are ‘only two genders’ in the US.
But now, he’s aiming at two particular flags which represent a portion of the nation.
As the State Department enacted a ‘one flag policy’, any US embassy or overseas mission cannot fly the Pride or BLM flag, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
The new directive means that only three flags that are not the stars and strips of the US national flag, can be flown.
These are the Prisoner of War, the Missing in Action, and the Hostage of Wrongful Detainee flags.
The Beacon, a news agency reported as the order stating: “Starting immediately, only the United States of America flag is authorized to be flown or displayed at U.S. facilities, both domestic and abroad, and featured in U.S. government content.”
The order was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on Monday (20 January) in a 99-0 vote.
Both of the flags have been raised in front of official US buildings, such as the US Embassy and Consulate in Brazile, which raised the Black Lives Matter flag in February 2022 to ‘commemorate Black History Month’.
US embassies in Trinidad and Tobago also did the same.
Donald Trump reportedly banned the Pride and BLM flag (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Pride flags have also been flown at the White House and the US embassy in Moscow.
The US Embassy in Nassau flew the rainbow colors for the entire month of June in 2021 and in May 2023, the Latvian Embassy in Riga raised the flag in to recognize the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia.
The order came from the desk of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who wrote: “The U.S. flag is a powerful symbol of pride and it is fitting and respectful that only the U.S. flag be flown or displayed at U.S. facilities, both domestically and abroad.”
Kevin Jennings, the chief executive officer at Lambda Legal, told Newsweek that the ban of the Pride and other flags, is ‘perry and mean-spirited’.
He said: “Flying such flags is simply a signal to people that they matter. It hurts no one. We have much bigger challenges to address as a nation and this is just a small-minded distraction from them.”
As per The Beacon, the order will not take lightly any attempt to fly the banned flags.
Neither flag can be flown on US government or affiliated buildings (Getty Stock Image)
Any State Department employees who breach the new policy will ‘face disciplinary action, including termination of employment or contract, or reassignment to their home agency’, however, it is unsure if there is any other penalty too.
People on social media have been reacting to this new order, and they aren’t happy.
One user stated: “It’s a human rights violation. The UN will deal with it.”
Another wrote: “Seems like the government banning free expression.”
UNILAD has reached out the White House for comment.
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Featured Image Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Topics: US News, Politics, LGBTQ, Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump
Donald Trump has received a sentence in his criminal hush money case after the New York Court of Appeals denied his request to halt the proceedings.
The soon-to-be president received his sentence after being found guilty in May 2024 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to a payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Trump.
The $130,000 ‘hush money‘ payments were found to be intended to boost Trump’s electoral prospects when he ran for president in 2016.
Trump has denied the claims made by Daniels (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The crime came with a maximum sentence of up to four years in prison, though New York Judge Juan Merchan previously indicated plans to sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge.
Merchan said such a sentencing would be the most ‘viable solution’ to the case.
Prior to the sentencing, lawyers for Trump asked the Court of Appeals to halt the sentencing as they claimed going ahead would cause ‘grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency’.
Now, speaking today (January 10), Merchan described Trump’s case as a ‘truly extraordinary’, CNN reported, and proceeded to give the sentence the President-elect to an unconditional discharge — as expected.
Under New York state law, this is a sentence imposed ‘without imprisonment, fine or probation supervision’, says MSNBC.
These are typically given for the least-serious offences such as very minor thefts, Sentencing Council explains.
Trump will become president on January 20 (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche previously argued that the sentencing could impinge on Trump’s transition into the Oval Office, which is set to take place on January 20.
Blanche described the transition as ‘a process that directly concerns the United States of America’s national security and vital interests’.
But lawyers for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hit back at Trump’s request to halt the sentence, pointing out that a president-elect does not have access to the same immunity as the actual president.
In a filing, the prosecution’s side wrote: “The President-elect is, by definition, not yet the President. The President-elect therefore does not perform any Article II functions under the Constitution, and there are no Article II functions that would be burdened by ordinary criminal process involving the President-elect.”
The lawyers added: “And notwithstanding defendant’s past and upcoming service as President, his history, character, and condition – and especially his open disregard for the justice system – do not support dismissal.”
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Featured Image Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images / Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, Crime, New York, Money
Some people on the internet have come to the conclusion as to what the employment act revoked by Donald Trump actually means for workers.
President Trump only took office on Monday (January 20) and he certainly hasn’t wasted any time in getting his feet under the table.
Just hours after returning to The White House, Trump signed off on 25 executive orders, which included halting the ban of TikTok, changing laws on immigration, and declaring that there are ‘only two genders’.
And undoubtedly among his most controversial moves was the signing on Tuesday (January 21) of a proposal which would bring an end to ‘radical and wasteful government diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI) programs.
The president is accelerating his plan to dismantle DEI plans, having revoked the Executive Order 11246 (1965) and sending the message that government employees responsible in the Department of Labor will see their DEI programs removed ‘immediately’ while they face paid leave, The New Republic reports.
Donald Trump has signed off a number of executive orders (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The law was designed to protect workers from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.
Advocates for it have long argued it presents a level playing field for underrepresented minorities such as LGBTQ+ people.
But now, Trump’s order to remove aims to stop companies hiring candidates on the basis of race and sex.
The order states: “As a part of this plan, each agency shall identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars.”
The order has certainly received a lot of criticism online, with one person saying of it on Twitter: “Good for straight white males. Bad for everyone else.”
There has even been a public outcry for the order to not go ahead.
Trump’s order has received some criticism online (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Basil Smikle Jr, a political strategist and policy advisor, commented: “There’s this clear effort to hinder, if not erode, the political and economic power of people of color and women.
“What it does is opens up the door for more cronyism.”
Not everyone is against the changes being made by Trump however, with Louisiana Senator John Kennedy (Republican) telling USA Today reporters: “The best way to stop discriminating against people on the basis of race of gender is to stop discriminating against people on the basis of race and gender.
“The truth is the American people don’t think about race or gender merely as much as some folks in Washington want to pretend.”