On the morning of January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14168. The title, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” (Executive Order 14168), carried all the hallmarks of his second-term strategy: moral panic dressed as policy, science denied in favour of dogma, and an unwavering scalpel aimed at the very existence of queer and trans people. The order mandated that all federal agencies define sex as strictly male or female, determined at birth, rooted in reproductive anatomy, and fixed for life. That simple act, done in the name of “protecting” American families, launched one of the most sweeping efforts to erase 2SLGBTQIA+ lives from the public record in modern U.S. history.

The erasure was not symbolic. Within hours, federal websites began scrubbing of references to transgender people. The CDC deleted information on trans health. The National Park Service removed posts on queer history. The Department of Health and Human Services directed its scientists to halt research that included gender identity. Departments were instructed to revise all forms and documents- passport applications, employment records, medical benefit claims- to reflect this narrow, binary definition of sex. It didn’t stop there. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission removed internal guidance related to gender identity from its charge forms. The American Immigration Lawyers Association sued U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services over the sudden rollout of revised forms that forced applicants to choose only “male” or “female,” erasing legal recognition for non-binary people without notice or public comment. This systematic, bureaucratic excision was administrative violence- efficient and far-reaching.

At the State Department, the impact was immediate. The “X” gender marker on U.S. passports was eliminated. Requests to update gender markers based on transition were denied outright. Those who had previously received “X” passports were told their documents would remain valid until expiration, but no further renewals would be processed. One plaintiff in the ACLU’s federal lawsuit, a nonbinary applicant named Elijah, had their renewal seized without explanation. Others reported being denied entry to government buildings when their documents no longer “matched” their presentation. The suit, filed by seven individuals, including five transgender Americans, argues that the new policy violates constitutional protections under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and exposes trans, nonbinary, and intersex people to harassment and violence in routine interactions with the state. Some, including disabled veterans, were also denied access to VA services because their documentation no longer aligned with the new requirements. The policy has not only disrupted international travel, it has reintroduced a daily fear into every aspect of civic life that requires an ID.

The impact of Executive Order 14168 did not stop at identification. The Department of Justice was instructed to “correct the misapplication” of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, an attempt to limit the definition of sex-based discrimination in employment law. Legal experts warned that this could narrow Title VII protections, allowing employers to discriminate against 2SLGBTQIA+ people in hiring, firing, and benefits as long as it is framed as enforcing “biological sex.” Federal agencies were told to stop interpreting Bostock as applying to pronoun usage, restrooms, or gender expression. In this redefinition, what had been affirmed as basic civil rights is now being reframed as misconduct or worse.

Then came the military. Executive Order 14183 reinstated the ban on transgender individuals serving openly. The administration claimed the ban was necessary for unit cohesion and readiness, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For Master Sergeant Logan Ireland and Staff Sergeant Nicholas Bear Bade- both Air Force personnel with exemplary service- it was a profound betrayal. They were placed on administrative leave solely for being trans. Their case, Ireland v. Hegseth, challenged the ban in federal court. In March, a judge granted a nationwide injunction, describing the order as “soaked in animus and dripping with pretext.” But the fear had already taken hold. Trans service members who had served with honour returned to silence. For many of them, years of open and selfless service were erased with the stroke of a pen.

And sadly, we’re far from done. Executive Order 14201 banned transgender girls and women from participating in women’s sports at any institution receiving federal funds. The Department of Education followed with demands that organizations like the NCAA strip transgender athletes of awards and records. Letters were sent urging schools and athletic associations to “restore to female athletes the titles misappropriated by biological males.” The retroactive nature of the directive humiliated students who had competed openly with significant institutional and peer support. Some were outed without consent. Others received threats as their names circulated online, weaponized by a culture war eager for casualties. Multiple lawsuits have since been filed, alleging violations of Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. Legal battles are underway, but the harm has already landed- in lockers, on playing fields, in school hallways where identity- where their personhood- becomes accusation.

Behind the headlines, another purge was unfolding. In early March, the NIH canceled at least sixty-eight federally funded research grants focused on 2SLGBTQIA+ health, totalling close to $40 million. Life-saving projects on HIV prevention, suicide among queer youth, cancer risk in gay men, and the long-term health of older 2SLGBTQIA+ adults were shut down. At Vanderbilt University, a longitudinal study tracking over 1,200 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals across decades was abruptly terminated. Dr. Brittany Charlton at Harvard saw her studies on mental health and discriminatory policy outcomes for 2SLGBTQIA+ teens cut midstream. The official justification cited low “return on investment.” Letters labeled the work “unscientific” and “ideological.” In reality, the data was a threat to those who would prefer that the data- as well as the people it represents- didn’t exist. Erasing evidence is easier than refuting it. If you remove the research, you remove the ability to prove harm, and by extension, remove the justification for protection.

The impact has not been confined to science. The arts have also come under fire. Under revised National Endowment for the Arts guidelines, organizations receiving federal funding are prohibited from promoting “gender ideology.” The Theater Offensive, a Boston-based group known for its unapologetic staging of queer and trans stories- particularly from communities of colour- found itself abruptly ineligible.

“They want us to disappear,” said playwright and director Giselle Byrd. “And they know that if they silence our art, they silence our memory.” The National Queer Theater, which has created inclusive educational programs across the country, reported that their applications were frozen due to “ideological conflict.” The ACLU filed suit, arguing the new restrictions violate the First and Fifth Amendments by targeting specific viewpoints for censorship. In response, the NEA temporarily suspended enforcement of the pledge while the case is pending. But the fear remains. In some states, queer artists have already begun self-censoring, erasing parts of their work before anyone else can.

Even institutions of higher education, historically buffered by academic freedom, are under siege. Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania lost hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding after refusing to comply with federal demands. To reinstate $400 million in grants, Columbia was pressured to end DEI initiatives, ban trans women from women’s teams, empower private security with arrest powers, and allow government oversight of departments focused on Middle East studies. The chilling effect has been immediate. Faculty in gender studies, queer theory, and public health are already experiencing increased internal scrutiny. Students are being told that using “preferred pronouns” may now be considered a political act. And federal agencies like the Department of Education have proposed blacklisting institutions that “persist in advancing anti-biological ideologies,” threatening funding for everything from scholarships to building maintenance.

And then there are the disappearances many did not even hear about. An internal memo instructed federal agencies working on anti-trafficking efforts to remove references to a victim’s race, gender identity, and immigration status from all public-facing reports. Advocates and researchers warn that this undermines prevention by obscuring the patterns traffickers exploit. It also blocks resources from reaching those most at risk, such as queer youth, racialized communities, and undocumented people. Silence becomes policy. Policy becomes harm. And that harm escalates at the cost of human lives.

Though much of the administration’s agenda has targeted transgender and gender-diverse people, the effects are further reaching. Bisexual and pansexual individuals- particularly those in straight-presenting relationships- report renewed pressures to remain closeted, not just socially, but administratively. Mental health professionals have lost access to federal research tools. Queer educators have been removed from classrooms under the guise of ideological neutrality. DEI programs, once offering basic inclusion training, are being dismantled across sectors. This is not a rollback of rights. It is a redefinition of reality- one that serves to further center control to those already holding power, silencing any who challenge them.

This story is not confined to the borders of the United States. In response to these developments, countries including Denmark, Finland, and Germany have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary travelers to the U.S. Uganda and Hungary have invoked American policy language to justify their own anti-2SLGBTQIA+ laws. What happens here does not stay here. When the U.S. erases queer and trans lives, it tells the world that such erasure is permissible, even advisable. It signals that equality and freedom are negotiable.

And the trajectory is clear. If left unchallenged, these policies will not remain contained. The redefinition of sex in federal law paves the way to roll back Title VII protections, threaten marriage equality, revoke parental rights, and restrict access to healthcare and housing. The growing administrative exclusion of queer and trans people from federal documentation, education, and public services sets the stage for broader forms of criminalization. Pride celebrations could be reframed as political protests requiring permits. Public expressions of queer identity — on stage, in curriculum, in art, in faith — could be classified as ideological extremism. It is not difficult to imagine a future in which queerness itself is treated as a security threat, given so much of it already is.

And as these policies normalize (and increase), the infrastructure of resistance is strategically weakened. By defunding research, the administration erases the data that proves systemic harm. By censoring art, it suppresses the stories that humanize queer lives. By removing language from official channels- gender markers, inclusive terms, identity frameworks- it attempts to strip people of the vocabulary to name their experience and their oppression. It’s not merely about silencing dissent. It’s about ensuring dissent cannot be formed in the first place. What is being built here is not just a different version of America.

It is a reality engineered to render any alternative unimaginable- a remaking of America not in the image of freedom, but of supremacy. The 2SLGBTQIA+ community are not the only ones facing the sharpest edge of this erasure. Immigrants are being stripped of protections. Indigenous sovereignty is being undermined. Racial justice initiatives are being dismantled. Disability rights are being diluted under calls for efficiency. Reproductive autonomy is vanishing beneath so-called moral clarity. This is not a collection of isolated policies; it is a coordinated choreography of control.

And yet, even now, the outcome is not inevitable. There are people resisting. Lawyers are fighting in courtrooms. Artists are shaping new spaces. Researchers are preserving memory. Communities are creating networks of mutual aid, truth-telling, and care in the absence and defiance of state protection. Queer and trans people are not pleading for a seat at the table of erasure, they are building new tables, new kinship, new ways of being.

This is what authoritarianism fears most: not outrage, but persistence. Not spectacle, but solidarity. Not the noise of dissent, but the steady work of people who remember, who refuse to be silent, who embody active and transformative justice. This vision of hope will not just happen. You can’t wait for others do be the heroes. It is up to everyone of us to act. The weight of resistance cannot rest on the shoulders of the most targeted alone. It requires all of us, especially those with relative privilege, to refuse the comfort of neutrality or even passive outrage. It demands that we relinquish the safety of silence, the convenience of distance, the expectation that it is “someone else’s job”.

It means showing up when there’s so much stake. It means listening without defensiveness, acting without applause, and standing in the gap even when our own rights are not yet at risk. This moment calls us not to charity, but to kinship. Not to saviourism, but to solidarity. The work ahead is long and uneven, but we are not without direction.

We are called, not to restore what was, but to co-create what must be, what can be: a future where no one’s dignity is up for debate, and where we all- queer, trans, racialized, disabled, immigrant, poor- can live and flourish without fear.