President Trump has issued an executive order to take the various state laws on Gender Transition for Minors up to the national level.

“This executive order is beautiful. The language in it is wonderful,” Family Research Council Senior Fellow Meg Kilgannon gushed. “It’s very well written. It’s very clear. And it protects parents. It protects children. It ends the reliance on junk science and will stop the promotion of using the WPATH guidelines. That’s huge. And it directs the federal government to review: what is the state of the science on this? What is the research into the effects of these treatments, so-called treatments on children?”

“This is quite extensive,” Family Research Council President, Tony Perkins agreed. “Not only does it address the issue of transgender sexual mutilation that is taking place, but it shows how much the federal government is involved in everything.” The executive order affects “institutions that get [federal] grants,” he continued, “and that’s almost every institution of higher learning that may have a hospital associated with it.” It also affects the military health care system, and it instructs the Department of Justice to treat some gender transition surgeries as female genital mutilation.

Future

Trump’s executive order also places his administration on the side of those fighting to protect children. “Now we will have the wind at our backs, instead of fighting the headwinds of the Biden administration, which was enforcing all of the opposite of this,” Kilgannon said.

“I love these executive orders — most of them,” said Perkins. “But they’re executive orders. They can be undone four years from now.” He called on Congress and state legislatures “to start seeing policy adopted into law that is anchored to truth, common sense. … Now, with the wind at our backs, this needs to be translated into public policy at the state and even the federal level.”

In fact, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) “has already introduced a bill to protect children against child abuse of these procedures,” noted Kilgannon. “It’s really a wonderful time to think about the possibilities.”

For all the labor expended in fighting to protect children from gender transition procedures, it’s encouraging to see that translate into federal policy under the Trump administration. However, the possibility that some future administration will reverse this policy is a reminder that the fight is not over until there is legislation to back up this order.