On January 29, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a sweeping and draconian executive order purporting to address “radical indoctrination” in primary and secondary schools, with a significant focus on educators who affirm or support the gender identity of transgender students. While scholars and litigators have pointed out the likely illegality of the order under domestic law, it also squarely flies in the face of the United States’ human rights commitments.
Stylistically, much of the order reads like an edict from an authoritarian state. It decries viewpoints opposed by the administration as “subversive” and “anti-American,” and pledges to instead “instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation and the values for which we stand.” Substantively, it gives key cabinet officials 90 days to present a plan to eliminate federal funding for schools that acknowledge the concept of gender identity in curricula, programs, and staff and faculty employment, that support transgender students who are socially transitioning, and that treat students consistent with their gender identity. (The Trump administration, taking its cues from global right-wing movements opposing a wide range of sexual and reproductive rights, has begun using the term “gender ideology” to describe the widespread and rights-respecting practice of acknowledging a person’s gender identity.)
The order finally instructs the U.S. Attorney General to work with state and local law enforcement officials to take action against those they believe to be sexually exploiting minors, practicing medicine without a license, or unlawfully facilitating a student’s social transition. While this may not appear objectionable – sexual exploitation is a crime and is typically punished as such – past efforts to muzzle supportive teachers and miscategorize gender-affirming care as child abuse strongly suggest that the order will be used in practice to chill the expression of those adults who accept and affirm transgender children for who they are.
The order further disrupts an educational landscape that has become incredibly hostile to the lives and well-being of transgender youth. A flood of anti-transgender legislation has swept the United States since 2020, with hundreds of bills being filed each year in state legislatures and virtually no legislative response at the federal level to codify or reaffirm transgender rights. The vast majority of these have targeted transgender youth, seeking to bar them from receiving gender-affirming care, restrict their access to bathrooms and locker rooms, and prohibit them from participating in athletics along with their peers.
Among the many alarming laws enacted as part of this moral panic are restrictions on the teaching or discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools. As of January 2025, nine U.S. states expressly prohibit instruction on these topics, and eight states require that parents be notified and have the opportunity to opt their child out of such instruction before it occurs. Moreover, five states require school staff to notify parents if they learn that a child is transgender, while two other states require that disclosure if parents ask for the information and seven other states do so before the child can be treated consistently with their gender identity in schools.
The executive order and these state laws exacerbate the isolation, discrimination, and violence that transgender children so widely experience. They discriminate against transgender children on the basis of their sex and gender identity, in violation of equality guarantees. They deprive children and educators of their freedom of expression and access to information, particularly insofar as schools have unnecessarily chilled educators’ speech to avoid running afoul of these laws. And by coercing schools into disrespecting students’ gender identity, they jeopardize those students’ privacy, safety, and right to education.
Just two years ago, the United Nations Human Rights Committee expressed concern about the worrying rise of state laws targeting transgender youth and lack of antidiscrimination protections for LGBT persons in the United States. Instead of taking the Committee’s concerns to heart, the Trump administration has aggressively doubled down on anti-transgender discrimination – and in doing so, has shown a flagrant disregard for the well-established human rights of transgender children and the many educators who support them.
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