On his inauguration day, President Donald Trump signed multiple executive orders, with one targeting transgender people.
The executive order is titled, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” and I find this to be a misplaced sentiment.
How could making the lives of trans people as difficult as possible help women?
The order immediately tries to nullify the existence of nonbinary or gender-fluid people in the second section saying, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
Some of the transgender care the executive order targets include revoking protections for transgender military members and disallowing transgender students from using the bathroom that fits their gender identity.
Most of the things under this executive order had already been laid out before the election through Project 2025.
The same Project 2025 that people defended Trump from being a part of, and others said that people’s fears of it were unbased, are now seeing these policies come to life.
These policies are reaching into the lives of transgender people who are barely given what they need and stripping away everything of comfort.
Louisiana’s “Given Name Act” already makes a student get a parent’s permission to be called another name or use varying pronouns. This makes me fear a future where a child is not allowed to go by a name or pronouns of their choosing, making school a living hell for them.
For many people in the country, including me, this is terrifying. The LGBTQ+ community has to live in fear that the right to gay marriage may be overturned next.
The sadness I felt when Trump was elected is all brought up again when I think about how things could have been right now if the election had gone the other way.
As a woman and part of the LGBTQ+ community, I am sick of thinking about what the next four years have in store. I hope to stop watching the rights of women, the LGBTQ+ community, etc, being stripped away, but this is most likely only the beginning.
The fear that so many have felt, especially every day since Jan. 20, isn’t dramatic, and now people may actually see that action is being taken.
Notably, when Biden won, the people who voted for Trump were angry, and now that Trump has won, everyone who didn’t vote for him is scared. In my eyes, that’s a group of people who are angry that they didn’t get what they wanted and are scared their rights will be taken away.
In a world where Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are standing behind a convicted felon to strip away rights and send in ICE raids, I am exhausted.
Kate Beske is a 21-year-old journalism senior from Destrehan, La.
