Washington:
Approximately 1.3 million adults and 300,000 youths identify as transgender in the United States, and for them, everyday is a ticking time bomb.
“With the stroke of my pen, on Day 1, we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy,” President-elect Donald Trump’s words reverberated across Phoenix Convention Center at AmericaFest, Turning Point USA’s (TPUSA) annual gathering.
About 20,000 rightwing politicians, activists and media figures gathered here, as Trump pledged to bring about the “common-sense revolution” and promised the incoming of the “golden age in America”.
“I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools,” he said at the event.
With Trump’s ban of transgenders in the military, about 15,000 people will be ousted from their duties from the army. Besides, transgender people will be prohibited to join the military as well.
Charlie Kirk, the director of TPUSA said that what transpired on November 5th, was an act of God, and that “God Almighty” deserved credit for Donald Trump’s victory.
For transgender people, now living in the United States amounts to living in enemy territory, and putting their agency to sleep, at least for the next four years. According to PBS News, LGBTQ+ youth calls to mental health crisis line spiked by 700 per cent after Election Day.
He also pledged to make sure “men” will be kept out of women’s sports. He falsely labelled two Olympic female boxers as men and said their participation in the Paris Games was “demeaning to women”, even though Imane Khelif of Algeria and Li Yu-ting of Taiwan were both assigned female at birth and identify as women.
As Trump declared in his 90-minute speech in Phoenix, “Under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. Doesn’t sound too complicated, does it?”
Apart from talking about economic growth and mass deportation of illegal immigrants, Trump also added that “wokeness” is degrading the country.
“And woke has to stop,” he said. “Because along with everything else, it’s destroying our country. We’re going to stop woke. Woke, woke is bulls***.” He argued that local school systems’ openness to transgender issues and critical race theory are parts of such destructive policies and vowed to put an end to them.
“We will get critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of our schools and we’re going to get it out of our schools very fast,” he said, followed by cheers from the audience. “I will defend religious liberty, I will restore free speech and I will defend the right to keep and bear arms.
It is also worthwhile to note that the Trump campaign had spent $65 million on anti-transgender campaign ads saying, “Kamala supports taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens. Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.” He had also accused Democrats of “pushing the transgender cult” on children.
Gender-affirming care is a necessity in the United States which has been associated with lower cases of depression, anxiety and suicidality. How Trump’s new laws are going to affect millions of people depending on gender-affirming care is still murky.
