Some of the most deplorable episodes in U.S. history involve the
government wielding the power of the state against minority groups:
Black people, Indigenous people and gay people, to name just a few.
Though these campaigns might have received popular support at the time,
history has consistently judged them as immoral, illegal and un-American.

Rather than understanding this history, President Trump is borrowing
from the worst of it.

Within hours, this language began to be codified in a series of
executive orders and actions attempting to exclude transgender people
from nearly every aspect of American public life.

The broadside against transgender people was not unexpected.
Anti-transgender politicians spent at least $215 million to scapegoat transgender people for a variety of social ills. The Republican Party
has increasingly viewed attacking trans rights as a political winner,
much as it did attacking civil rights during Richard Nixon’s presidency
and attacking gay rights in George W. Bush’s. That posture was
disgracefully reflected in the speed and glee with which House
Republicans barred transgender women from using women’s restrooms on
Capitol Hill after the election of Sarah McBride, the first openly
transgender member of Congress. As for Mr. Trump, he won power by
caricaturing and demonizing trans people; now he is using that power to
harm trans people.

The Trump administration’s attacks come half a decade after the conservative-dominated Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County
that discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination
under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “It is impossible to discriminate
against a person for being homosexual or transgender without
discriminating against that individual based on sex,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch.

It should be recognized that society is still grappling with the
cultural and policy implications of the rapidly shifting understanding
of gender. There are some issues — such as participation in sports and appropriate medical care for minors — that remain fiercely debated, even
by those who broadly support trans rights. There should be room for
those conversations.

But what shouldn’t be debated is whether the government should target a
group of Americans to be stripped of their freedom and dignity to move
through the world as they choose.

The fearmongering is all the more disproportionate, given how few people identify as transgender. They are a minuscule less than 1 percent of the American population. And they are 0.002 percent of college athletes — a population that’s been especially incendiary in the culture wars.

In the U.S. military, slightly more than 1 percent of troops are
transgender. That makes the Pentagon the largest employer of transgender
people in the country, and that has made military service a prime target
for the anti-trans movement.

The order called for imposing federally mandated discrimination against
the estimated 15,000 to 25,000 Americans who have agreed to put their
lives on the line to defend the nation.

Not only does this order erase the honorable service (and potentially
the pensions) of soldiers who led infantry patrols in Afghanistan and
flew combat missions over Syria; it attempts to deny that they exist as transgender people at all. “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and
his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with
the humility and selflessness required of a service member,” declared
the order.

Within hours of its signing, this executive order was challenged in
court by six active-duty transgender service members and two seeking to re-enlist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/opinion/transgender-trump-orders.html

Trump is shameless.

--
“We need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him. We shouldn’t have listened to him, and we can’t let that happen ever again”.
-- Nikki Haley

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