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The president of the U.S. is making international headlines once again, and the trans community is outraged. According to an article in NYTimes.com, the Trump administration is considering defining gender as a biological condition determined by genitalia at birth.
The article reports that "the agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing."
Sex is not binary, and so what this is, is an erasure of trans people and of people who don't conform to gender binaries, and it is a slap in the face of the millions of trans people who are tirelessly working to keep their visibility. In response to this, they took to the streets - and to social media - to rally against a gross disregard.
It is estimated that 1.4 million adults in the U.S. are transgender, and a number of prominent trans and gender nonconforming people spoke out in defense of themselves according to Josephine Yurcaba in TeenVogue.com. Among these is Caitlyn Jenner who tweeted an image that reads "Trans people won't be erased" in solidarity with the #WeWillNotBeErased hashtag.
READ MORE: In some cultures there has always been more than just male or female
.@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/JdZn1zCQmg
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) October 22, 2018
I sacrificed so much to be happy as a trans guy. I refuse to let the happiness of myself and so many others be erased.#WeWillNotBeErased #TransRightsAreHumanRights
— ??spoopy piper?? (@rinchillachan) October 21, 2018
Someone identifies as president who doesn't fit the president role, and we're supposed to accept that, no questions asked. Someone identifies as male or female, who doesn't fit the idea of a male or female role, and it's wrong...?#wewillnotbeerased #TheyWILLNOTbeErased
— Liddy Goon (@GoonLiddy) October 22, 2018
#wewillnotbeerased
— [G] (@violentichu) October 22, 2018
NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS WE WILL ALWAYS BE HERE. WE WILL ALWAYS BE TRANS. WE WONT LEAVE, WONT LISTEN AND WONT BE CHANGED.
WE ARE REAL.
WE ARE POWERFUL.
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY,
WE WILL NOT BE ERASED.
READ MORE: "I want to live like the woman that I am" – a 20-year-old’s trans journey
In 2018 a number of things have happened that have put trans people in focus. From the first black, disabled, trans teen model, to a woman who could be the first openly trans governor in the U.S, trans people have been given their rights and voices in spaces that were previously exclusive. This administration, if successful, would collapse all this work, effort, and progress. But trans people cannot and should not be erased.
Over the last several months of this year, if there is anything that we should have grasped by now, it should be that sex and gender are not easily defined and cannot be subjected to a tick-box 'boy or girl' binary. Reporting in Time.com, Elizabeth Reis writes that we need to "make it easier for all people to live freely and successfully, whether or not they conform to the potentially tentative pronouncements about their sex made at their birth."
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