I have previously written that we are currently facing a series of severe challenges to public health. And while we are dealing with problems with proven solutions like vaccination, our secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) seems committed to making things worse not better.
Clearly, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not waging war on influenza, measles, and bird flu. See the New York Times story that reveals he is now suggesting a Great Barrington Declaration for birds: allow bird flu to spread so chickens can develop natural immunity. So, what war is he fighting? Well, he is collaborating in Truskmumpia’s petty and cynical war on gender.
Yes, Kennedy Jr. is spending his valuable time promoting Trump’s uninformed pronouncements on gender and, even worse, collaborating with the uneducated and discriminatory policies of his benefactor. In Kennedy Jr.’s case, he is using his new power to enforce Trump’s prejudicial preoccupation with our transgendered community.
Ask yourself this: With a possible measles epidemic and falling rates of immunization, do we really need our HHS secretary doubling down on Donald Trump’s insistence that there are really, truly, only two genders and scapegoating and denying healthcare to the transgender community?
Here is what TIME magazine reported:
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed a raft of executive orders, including one proclaiming that the United States will only recognize ‘two sexes, male and female’ — a move that could have significant practical and psychological implications for trans and nonbinary people.
The order accuses ‘ideologues’ of denying ‘the biological reality of sex’ and dismisses gender identity, calling it ‘disconnected from biological reality.’ It declares that all federal agencies and employees will henceforth use the term ‘sex,’ not ‘gender,’ in all applicable policies and documents, and that government-issued forms of identifications will ‘accurately reflect the holder’s sex.’
But, as TIME notes:
Sex and gender are not always the same thing. Sex generally refers to a person’s anatomy, whereas gender has to do with a person’s social and personal identity and may differ from their assigned sex at birth. ‘This [executive order] is clearly a plan from the Trump Administration to erase transgender people’s existence under the law,’ says Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project.
[Emphasis added.]
On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump issued his executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”:
Let’s look more closely at the executive order:
Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly 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, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of ‘woman’ improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
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.
[Emphasis added.]
Allow me to humbly suggest that “Gender Ideology Extremism” might be far less of a problem for American women than the enduring reality of violence towards women, the new Supreme Court‘s Dobbs decision which severely limits their healthcare options, and the gender wage gap.
As for unequal pay, the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted:
In 2023, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median usual weekly earnings that were 84 percent of those of male full-time wage and salary workers … In 2023, 32 percent of women worked in professional and related occupations, compared with 22 percent of men. Within this category, though, the proportion of women employed in the higher paying jobs is much smaller than the proportion of men employed in these types of jobs. In 2023, 12 percent of women in professional and related occupations were employed in the relatively high-paying computer and mathematical (median weekly earnings of $1,628 for women and $1,976 for men) and architecture and engineering ($1,635 for women and $1,864 for men) occupations, compared with 50 percent of men.
Sixty-five percent of women in professional occupations worked in education and healthcare jobs in 2023, compared with 28 percent of men. Women earned less than men in education ($1,134 for women and $1,376 for men) and healthcare ($1,341 for women and $1,682 for men) occupations.
[Emphasis added.]
Then, there is the ever-present danger of life-threatening violence faced by American women. Nearly every one in two women in the United States will face physical violence from an intimate partner at some point in their lives. And 85 percent of domestic violence victims are women. Almost one in five women in the United States reported sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. According to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Nearly half of intimate partner violence and domestic violence victimizations were not reported to police.”
It takes a certain kind of blind adherence to dogma to imagine that “replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts” provides the kind of threat that demands such a determined and coordinated effort from the federal government. Especially when there are far more dangerous threats facing American women. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center: “91% of the victims of rape and sexual assault are female … In eight out of 10 cases of rape, the victim knew the person who sexually assaulted them …”
While Trump makes it a priority that we henceforth use “clear and accurate language” regarding gender, he and the Republicans continue to refuse to address another of the most significant threats facing American women. Nothing deprives American women “of their dignity, safety, and well-being” more than the MAGA-sponsored anti-abortion measures being imposed throughout the country.
In fact, Trump’s unnecessary war on gender distracts us from the continuing cruel violence afflicted upon pregnant women—the undeniable result of the right wing’s determination to subvert a woman’s right to control her own body. A clear and present public health emergency that seems not to have made it to RFK’s to-do list. As John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reports (here and here):
Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, some states have imposed severe restrictions on access to abortion, effectively forcing pregnant people to continue unwanted or unsafe pregnancies to term. The result, according to new research from Alison Gemmill and Suzanne Bell, was an increase in live births — but also infant deaths. The impacts were worse among certain populations: Black infants, for example, died at a rate 11% higher than would have been expected in the absence of bans.
[Emphasis added.]
In addition, The New York Times reports on a new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research on the women most affected by the Dobbs abortion ban:
Abortion has continued to rise since the period the data covers, especially through pills shipped into states with bans. But the study identifies the groups of women who are most likely to be affected by bans. For the average woman in states that banned abortion, the distance to a clinic increased to 300 miles from 50 miles, resulting in a 2.8 percent increase in births relative to what would have been expected without a ban.
But the escalating threat to women’s health, especially poorer women, seems far less of a priority for the Trump administration, which appears instead to be focused on vanquishing “Gender Ideology Extremism.” Clearly, Donald Trump has a different notion of what constitutes safety. In Truskmumpia, it is not limited healthcare options, violent men, and economic insecurity which pose the greatest threats but transgender people running track, swimming, or playing competitive volleyball.
As for the ever-present danger of violence directed at women, Trump, of course, seems somehow to have conveniently forgotten that a Manhattan jury of his peers actually did weigh the evidence and unanimously decide that he, an adult biologically human male, was indeed a threat to E. Jean Carroll.
Donald Trump spelled out the grave danger a trans woman could pose by occupying a women’s locker rooms but neglected to mention the risk an abusive male might pose by invading the women’s dressing room in a department store—the actual location of his sexual assault on E. Jean Carroll.
But this is Truskmumpia, where all it takes is a presidential declaration to transform what the world has known as the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America and to demean and short-circuit the brave service of transgender people in our military. On January 27, 2025, Donald Trump issued his order “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which, despite all evidence to the contrary, claims:
Here we now have the revenge of the bitter bone-spurs draft-dodger on those who risked abuse to serve. And despite the fact that from time immemorial there has always been gender fluidity amongst us humans, Donald John Trump has decided that from now on there will be only two very clear and very distinct genders, unchangeable and immutable.
And so the imaginary need to “Restore Biological Truth” has led Donald Trump to “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” the executive order that demands we extinguish yet another phantom problem facing America. Yes, I am sure you have encountered this in every athletic contest you have attended: the transgender person who unfairly snatches victory from the beleaguered immutable biologically human females, just another of the egregious inequities Donald Trump is committed to stopping in lieu of doing something to restore a woman’s right to choose.
The executive order states:
In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports. This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.
Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy. It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.
[Emphasis added.]
Besides setting out a new policy to limit the participation of transgender people in sporting events, the order requires an entire regime of punitive actions:
Understand that this is no longer just rhetoric but reality. As the White House’s Rapid Response propaganda team announced on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, the University of Pennsylvania will pay for its disobedience:
It is only in this un-brave new world that women now risk serious injury, even death, as medical professionals are kept from performing procedures they know are necessary because politics has replaced sound healthcare policy. This is the true “endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls” that is happening every day in America.
As The New York Times reported, Donald Trump is loving his assumed power to dictate social, even athletic, policy:
The Times wrote:
Something happened at the White House Friday afternoon that almost never happens these days. Somebody defied President Trump. Right to his face. He was about an hour into a meeting with a bipartisan group of governors when he suddenly remembered that the leaders of Maine had been resisting an executive order he signed banning transgender athletes from women’s sports. ‘Is Maine here?’ he wondered aloud. ‘The governor of Maine?’ ‘Yeah,’ Gov. Janet Mills answered from across the room. ‘I’m here.’
Referring to the executive order, Mr. Trump asked, ‘Are you not going to comply with that?’ ‘I’m complying with the state and federal laws,’ she said, rather pointedly. Mr. Trump replied that ‘we are the federal law’ and said that ‘you better do it’ or else he would withhold funding from her state. He reminded her that public opinion was overwhelmingly on his side on this issue. (A poll from The New York Times and Ipsos last month found that just 18 percent of Americans believe transgender female athletes — those who were male at birth — should be allowed to compete in women’s sports.) He warned again: ‘You better comply, you better comply, because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding.’
‘See you in court,’ she shot back. ‘Good,’ he said, sounding surly. ‘I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one.’ He paused and then added, ‘and enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.’
The New York Times/Ipsos poll demonstrates the effectiveness of the right-wing attempt to demonize the issue of gender diversity. There can certainly be a reasonable debate about whether or not transgender women have an advantage in women’s sports. But the issue of athletic advantage is far more complicated than current the Truskmumpian conclusions derived from simplistic notions of anti-wokeness. Having watched a heck of a lot of basketball, it is clear to me that while men tend to be taller and stronger and jump higher, American women, much like the Europeans, are playing a smarter, more team-oriented game.
In his 2023 study, D. J. Oberlin examines the many complicating factors involved in accurately determining what, if any, advantages trans athletes might have:
Before discussing gender as a criterion for sports participation, the concepts of sex and gender should be clearly understood. Although often used synonymously, sex and gender are two different terms used to describe related concepts. Sex is a biological concept having to do with chromosomes, genitalia, gonads, and hormones … While related to sex, gender has to do with behaviors, societal roles/expectations, and attributes which are valued or discouraged within a social group … While transgender may not perfectly capture the range of possible gender identities, it expresses the idea of sex and gender being unaligned. Thus, cisgender was coined to describe an individual whose sex and gender are the same …
When discussing sex, gender, and participation in sports and athletics, the main point of contention seems to be who should or should not be allowed to participate. The International Olympic Charter states that ‘The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind’ … If taken on its face, this Olympic principle indicates that trans individuals should have no restrictions on access to sports and athletics, and that discrimination violates that human right. The International Olympic Committee follows this principle in their most recent framework on fairness, however leaves the final decision on inclusion of transgender individuals to the various international federations on the basis of fairness and safety …
While the sport/athletic federations provisions focus on mean differences between cis and trans individuals, they tend to ignore differences amongst a cis only population that lead to advantages, disadvantages, or confer no advantage in athletics and sport performance … The total number of cis individuals that are naturally advantaged or disadvantaged would likely exceed the total number of transgender individuals wishing to compete based on their low proportion of the total population. Hence, the exclusion of the transgender individuals from sports and athletics based solely on concerns of inequity or injury risk, may be a solution in search of a problem …
In general, studies find that trans individuals, following gender affirming hormone therapy, become more similar to their gender identity (post-transition) cisgender counterparts, or are somewhere between the expected male and female averages … [In a] study by Jenkins et al. … trans individuals were matched with cis men and women of matched age and activity levels. All the trans women had been using gender affirming hormone therapy for at least two years allowing the researchers to compare many of their fitness attributes to cis men and women. Trans women indeed retained body mass and height significantly greater than cis women, and similar to cis men … However, their body composition (25.17 ± 8.57% body fat) was between that of cis men (17.12 ± 5.22%) and cis women (32.98 ± 9.06%), and not statistically different from either …
While data are still scarce, the limited information available does not suggest that trans men and trans women have much, if any, athletic advantage post-transition. Indeed, in most cases they perform more similarly to those matching their gender identity, or somewhere between cis men and women … If these individuals are performing somewhere between cis men and women on some performance parameters, does it pose a meaningful risk of inequity in sport or risk of athletic injuries, or are concerns for these problems misplacing blame to cover discrimination? …
Finally, it is well known that within sports and athletics, competitive advantage is in large part influenced by genetic predisposition … It is accepted that some individuals are born with natural advantages, however, the suggestion that trans individuals may enjoy some advantage in certain cases is regarded as unacceptable. Yet there does not seem to be a domination of sports by trans athletes if their advantage is so great. When examining issues that allegedly arise by trans athletes’ participation in sports and athletics, the solutions are more driven by a political/cultural divide rather than an honest attempt to actually mitigate inequities or risk of injuries that are occurring …
[Emphasis added.]
For a May 11, 2022, article, the BBC interviewed Joanna Harper, a transgender sports scientist who studies the effects of transition on female transgender athletes. Harper provided some important perspective, pointing out:
Trans women are never going to take over women’s sport. First of all, trans people make up roughly 1% of the population. The best example of a population study to look at comes from America. If you look at NCAA sports, there are more than 200,000 women competing every year in NCAA sports. Trans women make up 0.5-1% of the population so we should be seeing 1,000-2,000 trans women every year. The NCAA 11 years ago allowed trans women to compete, based on hormone therapy. We should be seeing 1,000-2,000. We see a handful every year. So 11 years after these hormone-therapy-based rules went into effect, trans women are not taking over NCAA sports. They are still hugely under-represented.
Now onto Donald Trump’s executive order “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” possibly the worst of all of his presidential actions for transgender Americans:
For Donald Trump and MAGA, the need for some Americans to transition from the gender they were assigned at birth to the gender they clearly identify with somehow poses the gravest threat of all:
Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.
Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding. Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.
Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.’
[Emphasis added.]
We should always be overly protective and conservative when it comes to the kind of medical care provided to children, of the procedures they undergo. But I want to offer an alternate view, a sense of what those who knowingly undergo gender transition feel about the process. Here are some of the results of a Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post poll of 515 trans and gender-non-conforming individuals:
Most trans adults say they knew their gender differed from their sex assigned at birth when they were a child or teenager, but few told others before the age of 18. Trans adults are more likely than cisgender adults to say they felt isolated as a child or teenager and many report serious difficulties growing up, including unsafe learning environments and mental health struggles …
Three in ten trans adults say they experienced homelessness or got kicked out of their home while they were growing up, including nearly four in ten (38%) trans people of color. One in four trans adults say they attended religious services as a child or teenager that tried to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, and one in ten (11%) say they attended conversion or reparative therapy …
Nearly 8 in 10 trans adults (78%) say living as a gender that is different from their gender assigned at birth has made them ‘more satisfied’ with their life. Yet, some trans people are not out to family or friends and a small but significant share (16%) say they ‘never’ physically present as a gender different from their sex assigned at birth. Being ‘out’ is less common among older trans adults (ages 35 and older) as well as trans people of color.
Let that sink in. Contrary to the inflamed rhetoric and the false claim that “countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated,” 78 percent of those interviewed believe their lives have been made better transitioning to the gender they feel best fits them.
As with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claim that childhood vaccines are more dangerous than the fatal childhood diseases they are designed to combat, that the Measles vaccine can cause autism, Trump’s gender war is yet another occasion where unsupported dogma contradicts medical and psychological experience. Highly charged expressions like “maiming” and “mutilating” and “horrifying tragedy” not only provoke disgust and rage but obscure the real-life experience of boys and girls, men and women who experience the very real condition of gender dysphoria.
Here is some of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2024 “Policy Statement on Affirming Evidence-Based Inclusive Care for Transgender, Gender Diverse, and Nonbinary Individuals, Addressing Misinformation, and the Role of Psychological Practice and Science”:
… this policy statement addresses the spread of misleading and unfounded narratives that mischaracterize gender dysphoria and affirming care, likely resulting in further stigmatization, marginalization, and lack of access to psychological and medical supports for transgender, gender diverse, and nonbinary individuals. Misinformation further creates distress and confusion for families and loved ones of transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary individuals, as they make decisions about their healthcare. The primary goal is to encourage psychologists to unite in their support for access to psychological and all appropriate healthcare services and treatment for transgender, gender-di- verse, and nonbinary individuals …
gender diversity is present throughout the lifespan and has been present throughout history … and gender-based bias and mistreatment (e.g., discrimination, violence, non-affirmation, or rejection in response to gender diversity) pose significant harm, including risk of suicide, to the well-being of children, adolescents, adults, and families … and gender-related distress is a complex and nuanced psychological experience … and legislative efforts to restrict access to care have involved the dissemination of misleading and unfounded narratives (e.g., mischaracterizing gender dysphoria as a manifestation of traumatic stress or neurodivergence, and equating affirming care for transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary youth with child abuse), creating a distorted perception of the psychological and … medical support necessary for these youth and creating a hostile environment that adversely affects their mental health and wellbeing … such misinformation is widely disseminated through formal and informal networks, yet credible scientific evidence has not been widely disseminated and is not readily accessible to the public, having the potential to further stigmatize and marginalize all transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary individuals, hindering their access to indicated and necessary healthcare… and fostering an environment that may lead to discrimination … [and] state bans on gender-affirming care and the imposition of legal penalties on providers engaging in evidence-based care disregard the comprehensive body of psychological and medical research supporting the positive impact of gender-affirming treatments, which include as a standard of care noncoercive, developmentally appropriate support for gender exploration and decision-making in alleviating psychological distress and improving overall well-being for transgender, gender diverse, and nonbinary individuals across the lifespan.
There is nothing so illuminating as a look at what came before and what has come after to clarify what is going on. So here is former President Joe Biden’s January 20, 2021, “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation”:
Every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love. Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports. Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes. People should be able to access healthcare and secure a roof over their heads without being subjected to sex discrimination. All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Unfortunately, while HSS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been downplaying our ever-increasing health threats, he has been actively promoting Donald Trump’s ill-advised and, as the APA has shown, dangerous new gender initiatives.
As the Times reported:
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration had adopted a set of official government ‘sex-based definitions’ to give the public and federal agencies precise terms with which to describe categories including ‘male,’ ‘female,’ ‘woman’ and ‘man.’ … ‘This administration is bringing back common sense and restoring biological truth to the federal government,’ Mr. Kennedy said in a statement. ‘The prior administration’s policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over.’
In a more sensible universe, HHS would enthusiastically embrace a “common sense” effort to immunize the American public against the spread of easily controlled diseases. But Kennedy is more interested in promoting their Trumpified agenda for women’s health:
As the Times points out:
But many medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics recognize that not everyone fits into neat categories of male and female. Some individuals are intersex and have sexual anatomy or chromosomes that do not fit typical definitions of male and female. Some children do not identify with either gender, or identify with a gender that does not correspond to their biological sex. The Academy has published its own set of definitions that include transgender youth, described as “a subset of gender-diverse youth whose gender identity does not match their assigned sex.
Thankfully, the courts are insisting on reason and fairness. As The Washington Post reports:
A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from banning transgender people from serving in the military, ruling that the plan violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Judge Ana C. Reyes issued the preliminary injunction, barring the Defense Department from enacting a new policy that would’ve moved to remove transgender troops from the ranks …
Reyes, who was appointed by former president Joe Biden, wrote that such pronouncements that transgender people are not honorable, truthful or disciplined are ‘pure conjecture.’ The executive order and Defense Department policy ‘provide nothing to support Defendants’ view that transgender military service is inconsistent with military readiness,’ she wrote. ‘Plaintiffs face a violation of their constitutional rights, which constitutes irreparable harm. Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed — some risking their lives — to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,’ Reyes wrote, adding that ‘avoiding constitutional violations is always in the public interest.’
[Emphasis added.]
The Trump/Kennedy war on gender is a war against empathy and understanding, a war against those whose “internal sense” and experience of life is different from many. The war on gender is a toxic surrender to fear, a persecution of the different, of the other. And, in this war, as in so many other ways, Truskmumpia is on the wrong side.
