Latest news with #DefendingWomenfromGenderIdeologyExtremism
USA Today
30-04-2025
- Health
- USA Today
Exclusive: Trump administration banned chosen names at FDA, NIH under new gender policy
Exclusive: Trump administration banned chosen names at FDA, NIH under new gender policy Show Caption Hide Caption Transgender people still face barriers to competent health care According to the U.S. Trans Survey, conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, a third of trans people have faced discrimination from a health care provider. Employees of the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health are being told to use their legal names in official systems, a move the agencies say is in response to President Donald Trump's executive order that reversed protections for transgender people. The policies affect transgender employees who use a name that aligns with their gender identity rather than the sex they were assigned at birth. But the policies can also affect married women who choose to go by their maiden name at work, and people who go by middle names, initials, or shorten their first names, for example from James to Jim. The FDA and NIH policies go beyond a January directive from the Office of Personnel Management that ordered agencies to purge contracts and content related to gender identity and turn off features on email platforms 'that prompt users for their pronouns.' Both agencies are part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Media representatives for the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, and NIH did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment. The FDA website refers media inquiries to the Department of Health and Human Services. Memos came from FDA, NIH A March 14 memo to FDA employees obtained by USA TODAY said Department of Health and Human Services policy only allows employees to use 'full legal name' in their email signatures and cannot use pronouns or what the agency calls 'nicknames.' The memo said it was in response to President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 executive order called 'Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.' The order declared the government only recognized two sexes — male and female — that it says are determined at conception. The National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases told employees March 13 that employees had until the end of the day to remove pronouns and "nicknames" from email signatures, and that they could only use "full legal names." The memo cited guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services. The NIH sent a similar memo March 21 announcing that the agency was removing 'preferred name' information in an internal contact system in order to comply with Health and Human Services policy on 'nicknames' and the 'Defending Women' executive order. The email also warned employees against changing their legal names in the system: 'Please be aware that any change to your legal name in (the database) will trigger a new background check and a new HHS badge request.' HHS news: RFK Jr.: Chronic diseases need top billing, not infectious diseases like measles and COVID How the policies affect transgender workers "It's showing how far they're willing to go for an anti-trans agenda," said Adrian Shanker, the former deputy assistant secretary for Health and Human Services under former President Joe Biden who led LGBT policymaking. A National Institute of Health employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation criticized the move as an attack on transgender employees that goes against the agency's tradition of trans inclusion. "They work with scientists and scientists tend to be people who understand the basics of the diversity of humans," Shanker said. He said that meant the agency historically "brought in a workforce that believe in being an inclusive work environment and I think that's one of the reasons it's so shocking." Lindsay Dhanani, an associate professor of human resource management at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said choosing a name and pronouns is a big step for transgender people, and when people around them don't use those names or pronouns, 'that causes a lot of damage for people.' She said not honoring a person's name or pronouns are some of the most common forms of transphobia, and transphobia can lead to anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide. However, 'when firms adopt policies that encourage all employees to bring their whole selves to the workplace, they tend to be more productive and may benefit by becoming an employer of choice,' a 2017 study published in the academic journal Human Resources Management found. Another NIH employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of losing her job, said the policy has confused colleagues who could not find her in the employee database, since she has always used her maiden name at work in order to maintain consistency in her scientific publications. Her legal name is her married name. USA TODAY requested a full copy of the Department of Health and Human Services policy on 'nicknames' that is referenced in the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration memos, but the department did not provide it, instead pointing to a press release about what the administration calls 'gender ideology.' 'This administration is bringing back common sense and restoring biological truth to the federal government,' Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in the release. 'The prior administration's policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over.' Trump's executive order required agencies to make sure identification documents such as passports and visas "accurately reflect" a person's sex. The order also questioned a 2020 Supreme Court case that made it illegal for employers to fire someone for being gay or transgender, and ordered the attorney general to "correct the misapplication" of the Supreme Court decision. The Office of Personnel Management ordered agencies to "disband or cancel" employee resource groups that "promote gender ideology," and make sure that bathrooms are "designated by biological sex and not gender identity," among other things. HHS news: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggests compensating families of some people with autism How leaders identify themselves Websites for agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services now often show formal names for its leaders. The head of the Food and Drug Administration, who is often called Marty, is listed as Dr. Martin Makary on the official website. Kennedy's official bio lists him by his full name and briefly references him as 'Bobby Jr.' But Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya, who went by 'Jay' in his previous academic position, is continuing to use his nickname in government. It appeared in the headline of an April 1 press release, his official biography, and multiple tweets published on official social media accounts. An essay published last week also used Bhattacharya's nickname in the signature. Dhanani criticized Bhattacharya's use of his nickname, and said it 'demonstrates that the rule isn't for everybody' and 'to me it demonstrates the intention behind the policy.' 'If the rule isn't motivated by disallowing trans people to be themselves, then it has to apply to everybody, and if you're in a leadership position, the modeling of this applying to everybody starts with you,' she said.
USA Today
30-04-2025
- Health
- USA Today
Trump administration officials banned chosen names at FDA, NIH under new gender policy
Trump administration officials banned chosen names at FDA, NIH under new gender policy Show Caption Hide Caption Transgender people still face barriers to competent health care According to the U.S. Trans Survey, conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, a third of trans people have faced discrimination from a health care provider. Employees of the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health are being told to use their legal names in official systems, a move the agencies say is in response to President Donald Trump's executive order that reversed protections for transgender people. The policies affect transgender employees who use a name that aligns with their gender identity rather than the sex they were assigned at birth. But the policies can also affect married women who choose to go by their maiden name at work, and people who go by middle names, initials, or shorten their first names, for example from James to Jim. The FDA and NIH policies go beyond a January directive from the Office of Personnel Management that ordered agencies to purge contracts and content related to gender identity and turn off features on email platforms 'that prompt users for their pronouns.' Both agencies are part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Media representatives for the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, and NIH did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment. The FDA website refers media inquiries to the Department of Health and Human Services. Memos came from FDA, NIH A March 14 memo to FDA employees obtained by USA TODAY said Department of Health and Human Services policy only allows employees to use 'full legal name' in their email signatures and cannot use pronouns or what the agency calls 'nicknames.' The memo said it was in response to President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 executive order called 'Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.' The order declared the government only recognized two sexes — male and female — that it says are determined at conception. The National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases told employees March 13 that employees had until the end of the day to remove pronouns and "nicknames" from email signatures, and that they could only use "full legal names." The memo cited guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services. The NIH sent a similar memo March 21 announcing that the agency was removing 'preferred name' information in an internal contact system in order to comply with Health and Human Services policy on 'nicknames' and the 'Defending Women' executive order. The email also warned employees against changing their legal names in the system: 'Please be aware that any change to your legal name in (the database) will trigger a new background check and a new HHS badge request.' How the policies affect transgender workers "It's showing how far they're willing to go for an anti-trans agenda," said Adrian Shanker, the former deputy assistant secretary for Health and Human Services under former President Joe Biden who led LGBT policymaking. A National Institute of Health employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation criticized the move as an attack on transgender employees that goes against the agency's tradition of trans inclusion. "They work with scientists and scientists tend to be people who understand the basics of the diversity of humans," Shanker said. He said that meant the agency historically "brought in a workforce that believe in being an inclusive work environment and I think that's one of the reasons it's so shocking." Lindsay Dhanani, an associate professor of human resource management at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said choosing a name and pronouns is a big step for transgender people, and when people around them don't use those names or pronouns, 'that causes a lot of damage for people.' She said not honoring a person's name or pronouns are some of the most common forms of transphobia, and transphobia can lead to anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide. However, 'when firms adopt policies that encourage all employees to bring their whole selves to the workplace, they tend to be more productive and may benefit by becoming an employer of choice,' a 2017 study published in the academic journal Human Resources Management found. Another NIH employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of losing her job, said the policy has confused colleagues who could not find her in the employee database, since she has always used her maiden name at work in order to maintain consistency in her scientific publications. Her legal name is her married name. USA TODAY requested a full copy of the Department of Health and Human Services policy on 'nicknames' that is referenced in the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration memos, but the department did not provide it, instead pointing to a press release about what the administration calls 'gender ideology.' 'This administration is bringing back common sense and restoring biological truth to the federal government,' Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in the release. 'The prior administration's policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over.' Trump's executive order required agencies to make sure identification documents such as passports and visas "accurately reflect" a person's sex. The order also questioned a 2020 Supreme Court case that made it illegal for employers to fire someone for being gay or transgender, and ordered the attorney general to "correct the misapplication" of the Supreme Court decision. The Office of Personnel Management ordered agencies to "disband or cancel" employee resource groups that "promote gender ideology," and make sure that bathrooms are "designated by biological sex and not gender identity," among other things. How leaders identify themselves Websites for agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services now often show formal names for its leaders. The head of the Food and Drug Administration, who is often called Marty, is listed as Dr. Martin Makary on the official website. Kennedy's official bio lists him by his full name and briefly references him as 'Bobby Jr.' But Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya, who went by 'Jay' in his previous academic position, is continuing to use his nickname in government. It appeared in the headline of an April 1 press release, his official biography, and multiple tweets published on official social media accounts. An essay published last week also used Bhattacharya's nickname in the signature. Dhanani criticized Bhattacharya's use of his nickname, and said it 'demonstrates that the rule isn't for everybody' and 'to me it demonstrates the intention behind the policy.' 'If the rule isn't motivated by disallowing trans people to be themselves, then it has to apply to everybody, and if you're in a leadership position, the modeling of this applying to everybody starts with you,' she said.
Chicago Tribune
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Group files federal complaint over Deerfield transgender student using locker room
Deerfield Public Schools District 109 is in the national crosshairs, with a conservative group filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) accusing the district of forcing middle school students to change into gym clothes in front of a transgender student. The incident previously gained national attention after the mother of one of the students, Nicole Georgas, went on Fox News to criticize the district over the alleged incident. She also spoke during a school board meeting to demand that locker rooms and bathrooms be designated for either biological males or biological females, arguing there is 'already a gender-neutral option.' In a previous statement, the district said students are not required to change into gym clothes in front of others in locker rooms and have 'multiple options to change in a private location if they wish.' The district said its policies and procedures, including those related to students' use of locker rooms, are in line with state laws, the Illinois School Code and guidance from the Illinois State Board of Education. 'District 109 is committed to providing a learning environment where all students and staff are respected and supported,' the statement said. Conservative nonprofit America First Legal (AFL) announced Tuesday it had filed a complaint with the criminal section of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, urging it to conduct a criminal investigation into District 109 and its administrators over the alleged incident. A DOJ spokesman declined comment, but a department source with knowledge of the complaint confirmed it was submitted. Attempts to reach the Illinois State Board of Education for comment were unsuccessful. AFL claims the district violated Title IX and President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14168, called 'Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.' AFL was founded in 2021 by Stephen Miller, a senior Trump advisor. According to AFL's allegations, the district's policy of allowing the transgender student to use the girls' bathroom and locker room led to a protest by a group of teenage girls who refused to change for gym class. AFL claims school administrators 'admonished (the students), and threatened them with discipline for 'misgendering' the boy and refusing to change for PE.' 'Shockingly, the school administrators, including the superintendent of student services, and the assistant principal, entered the girls' locker room and used their authority to intimidate the girls into changing in front of the boy,' the AFL said. In the release, Ian Prior, an AFL senior counsel, claimed the students' 'First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights' had been 'sacrificed at the altar of radical transgender madness and the woke government bureaucrats that view the Constitution as nothing more than toilet paper' and district officials 'should face the long arm of our Justice Department.' Protestors on both sides of the controversy were expected at Thursday evening's school board meeting, with Moms For Liberty Lake County and several LGBTQ organizations expected to advocate for support. Kristal Larson, who is the executive director of the LGBTQ+ Center Lake County, Avon Township's clerk and a transgender woman, said during a transgender visibility event last month that there is 'a lot of anger' and 'concern' over what has been happening in Deerfield. 'There's fear that other schools may be targeted in the same way, and that Lake County can become unsafe,' Larson said. But the controversy over the unidentified transgender student's bathroom and locker room use goes far beyond Lake County's, and even the state's, borders, Larson added, saying the transgender community has been a target of the new presidential administration. Executive orders from the Trump administration seek to stop transgender, nonbinary and intersex people from changing their gender markers on passports or serving in the military, force transgender women in federal prisons to be housed with men and bar them from participation in female sports. The orders also attempt to end gender-affirming care for transgender people younger than 19, and prohibit federal spending on the promotion of 'gender ideology.' '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,' Trump wrote in an executive order. The Deerfield controversy has attracted attention from unusual places. Last month, District 109 put out a statement saying it was aware members of the community had received communications asking them to complete a survey about Deerfield schools, which they clarified were not from the district. In the statement, the district said it was not aware of who was distributing the survey. In late March, Dave Nayak, a Chicago-area politician and former Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for the District 20 seat and said he had turned on the 'radical left,' announced he had commissioned a survey from conservative pollster group M3 about the district's transgender policies, ultimately calling for the district to change its policies.
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Veterans Affairs to phase out gender dysphoria medical treatments
March 17 (UPI) -- Leaders at the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Monday they will phase out medical treatments for gender dysphoria to comply with President Donald Trump's "Defending Women" executive order. "I mean no disrespect to anyone, but VA should not be focused on helping veterans attempt to change their sex. The vast majority of veterans and Americans agree, and that is why this is the right decision," said VA Secretary Doug Collins. "All eligible veterans, including trans-identified veterans, will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they've earned under the law," Collins added. "But if veterans want to attempt to change their sex, they can do so on their own dime." While the VA has never provided sex-change surgeries, it has offered cross-sex hormone therapy, voice training and gender-affirming prosthetics. The VA said funding, allocated to any gender dysphoria medical treatments, would be redirected to help paralyzed veterans and amputees "regain their independence." President Trump signed the "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" executive order shortly after his inauguration on Jan. 20. "It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female," the executive order states. "These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality." In addition to phasing out treatments for gender dysphoria, the VA said bathrooms, locker rooms and patient rooms are now designated by male or female, or unisex for single-person spaces. The Modern Military Association of America blasted Monday's announcement, calling the gender dysphoria rollback "a direct assault on the well-being of vulnerable LGBTQ+ veterans, jeopardizing their access to essential care." "Combined with the administration's planned cut of 80,000 VA employees, these actions demonstrate a blatant disregard for the nation's commitment to those who have served," said Rachel Branaman, executive director of the Modern Military Association of America. Currently, there are more than 134,000 transgender veterans in the United States, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. Fewer than 9,000 of the VA department's 9.1 million veterans, enrolled in medical care services, are believed to be transgender.
CNN
20-02-2025
- Health
- CNN
HHS issues new definitions of terms like ‘sex,' ‘man' and ‘woman' that critics say ignore science
In one of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s first moves as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, the agency released guidance Wednesday for the US government, external partners and the public that offers a narrower definition of sex than the ones used by many scientists and that aligns with a January executive order signed by President Donald Trump. The department also launched a website promoting these definitions and created a video defending a ban on transgender women participating in women's sports. HHS says the action was prompted by Trump's January 20 executive order titled 'Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,' which required the agency to provide 'clear guidance expanding on the sex-based definitions set forth in the order' within 30 days. Wednesday's publication furthers the Trump administration's efforts to deny the existence of people who identify as transgender, nonbinary or intersex, a sharp departure from the Biden administration's attempts to create more inclusive health policy and research. The executive order and the new HHS document provide similar narrow definitions of words like 'sex,' 'female,' 'woman,' 'girl,' male,' 'man' and 'boy.' HHS adds definitions like the term 'father,' described as a male parent, and 'mother,' a female parent. There were slight variations in the definition of 'male' and 'female.' Trump's executive order, for instance, said a male is a 'person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.' HHS's definition explains that a male 'is a person of the sex characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing sperm.' The HHS news release defines sex using Trump's language, saying it is 'a person's immutable biological classification as either male or female.' However, it skips a sentence in Trump's executive order that read, ''Sex' is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of 'gender identity.'' Gender is not a focus of the HHS document. Previously, the federal government has defined 'sex' in much broader terms. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of HHS's agencies, defined it as 'an individual's biological status as male, female, or something else. Sex is assigned at birth and associated with physical attributes, such as anatomy and chromosomes.' Gender had been defined as something separate but inter-related to sex as 'the cultural roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes expected of people based on their sex.' Within days of his inauguration, the Trump administration removed the CDC website with the definitions along with hundreds of others that were more gender-inclusive. After organizations sued, a judge ordered the administration to restore them. The pages now carry a disclaimer that says 'any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female.' Kennedy said Wednesday that the narrower sex-based definitions restore 'biological truth to the federal government.' 'The prior administration's policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over,' he said in a news release. Some legal experts were sharply critical of the new definitions. Michele Bratcher Goodwin, a health law professor at Georgetown and the co-faculty director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, said that the definitions ignore science and that the executive order that demanded them was deeply problematic. 'What we've seen coming from the Trump administration is to proffer matters that are unconstitutional, that are blatantly illegal, that have been shut down by an array of federal judges,' Bratcher Goodwin said. The new definitions aren't just rhetoric, she said; they will have real consequences for health and science, and for how doctors treat patients. Narrow definitions can limit research, for example, such as surveys that once captured information about children who identify as transgender. HHS would typically rely on peer-reviewed science to offer such guidance, but Wednesday's publication 'completely ignores the complexity of human experience,' said health law expert Omar Gonzalez with Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. The first out transgender athlete to win an NCAA title has exclusively told CNN that she'd like to sit down with US President Donald Trump to discuss his view on gender issues and banning of transgender women from competing in sports. 'This is just showmanship,' Gonzalez said. 'It's pure smoke and mirrors. It's a website that links to the very executive orders that we've already challenged and even gotten some of them enjoined in court.' On February 4, a judge granted a temporary restraining order related to the executive order as it pertained to where transgender prisoners should be housed. Bratcher Goodwin points out that the new definitions fail to account for people such as those who identify as intersex. People who are intersex, who are not acknowledged in either document, have sexual or reproductive anatomy that doesn't fit the male/female binary. By some estimates, up to 2% of the US population is born intersex. Intersex people 'have been documented for millennia. It's nothing new. It's not as if the president could say, 'oh, this is some new trend, some fad,' ' Bratcher Goodwin said. 'What the president's executive order and also this guidance suggests is that they're invisible. That these individuals don't exist. It's sophistry.' Cait Smith, director of LGBTQI+ policy at the Center for American Progress, a public policy research and advocacy organization, called the new definitions 'mean-spirited' and 'unscientific.' Smith said the language is 'copy-paste' from anti-transgender bills that Smith's organization has fought in state legislatures for years. 'The law today is no different than the law was yesterday. The law still protects trans folks from discrimination, so that is the reason that we're seeing a lot of these PR stunts like this announcement,' Smith said. 'I think it's still unclear if they can do more than this at this point without courts intervening like they are.' Smith and members of other civil rights organizations said they are working to help schools and medical groups interpret such announcements while suing to stop policies they consider discriminatory. 'Unfortunately, this will probably be a problem for a while,' Smith said. 'Attempting to sow confusion, that's easier than actually passing policy.'
