President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funding if California did not stop a transgender girl in high school from competing in state track and field finals, and said he would discuss it with Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday.
Trump, in a social media post, appeared to be referring to AB Hernandez, 16, who has qualified to compete in the long jump, high jump and triple jump championship run by the California Interscholastic Federation at a high school in Clovis, California, this weekend.
The CIF is the governing body for California high school sports, and its bylaws state that all students “should have the opportunity to participate in CIF activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity.” California law prohibits discrimination, including at schools, based on gender identity.
Trump, a Republican, referred in his social media post on Tuesday to California’s governor as a “Radical Left Democrat” and said: “THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS.”
He said he was ordering local authorities not to allow the trans athlete to compete in the finals.
Under the U.S. and California constitutions, state and local officials and individuals are not subject to orders of the president, who can generally only issue orders to agencies and members of the federal government’s executive branch.
Trump threatened that “large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently,” if his demands are not met. Such a move would almost certainly lead to a legal challenge by California, which has already sued over multiple Trump actions it says are illegal or unconstitutional.
Trump also referred to comments Newsom made on his podcast in March when the governor also said he believed competition involving transgender girls was “deeply unfair.”
A spokesperson for Newsom declined to comment on Trump’s remarks, but referred to comments Newsom made in April when he said overturning California’s 12-year-old law allowing trans athletes to participate in sports was not a priority.
“You’re talking about a very small number of people,” Newsom told reporters. Out of the 5.8 million students in California’s public school system, there are estimated to be fewer than 10 active trans student athletes, according to the governor’s office.
A CIF spokesperson did not respond to questions, and Hernandez could not be immediately reached for comment.
Some local school officials and parents have sought to prevent Hernandez from competing; others have spoken in support of Hernandez and condemned what they say is bullying of a teenager.
In an interview with Capital & Main, Hernandez dismissed claims she has an unfair biological advantage in sports, noting that while she had placed first in a triple jump event this month, she came in eighth in the high jump and third in the long jump.
“All I thought was, I don’t think you understand that this puts your idiotic claims to trash,” Hernandez said of her mixed showing.
In a statement shared on X Tuesday afternoon, several hours after Trump’s social media post about California student athletics, the CIF announced it would be piloting a new “entry process” for this weekend’s track and field championships that will allow more cisgender, or nontransgender, female athletes to compete.
“Any biological female student-athlete who would have earned the next qualifying mark for one of their Section’s automatic qualifying entries in the CIF State meet, and did not achieve the CIF State at-large mark in the finals at their Section meet, was extended an opportunity to participate in the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships,” the statement said, in part.
The statement did not specify whether the new process would only apply to events for which Hernandez qualified.
When the Supreme Court issued its 88-page long judgement that the legal definition of ‘sex’ is based on ‘biology’, gender critical lobbying group and controversially registered charity LGB Alliance declared it was a “landmark for lesbian rights in the UK”.
“This matters greatly to LGB people,” CEO Kate Barker said of the ruling. “It is especially important to lesbians, because the definition of lesbian is directly linked to the definition of woman.”
Barker – who once claimed a singular drag queen carrying the Olympic torch demonstrated the “erasure of woman in all spheres of public life” – went on to say the ruling “marks a watershed for women and, in particular, lesbians who have seen their rights and identities undermined over the last decade”.
Despite Supreme Court judge Lord Hodge specifically counseling against certain factions “reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another,” gender critical activists view the outcome of the Supreme Court case as a decisive victory for all women over so-called ‘gender ideology’.
However, in the days and weeks that have followed the Supreme Court ruling, it has quickly become clear that many women who are not trans – who are in the court’s definition born as ‘biological women’, identify as women and women and live their lives as women – will likely be disadvantaged by the court’s decision because they do not fit into narrow, often white and western, definitions of what constitutes as ‘woman’.
Transgender people and their allies stage a protest march in Westminster in support of trans rights following this week’s UK Supreme Court unanimous ruling that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex, in London, United Kingdom on April 19, 2025. (Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Sparked by a trans-inclusive definition of womanhood in Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 – which sought to diversity the number of women on public boards in the devolved nation – the Supreme Court decisionwas the culmination of a years-long legal battle between gender critical Scottish group For Women Scotland (FWS) and the Scottish government about how the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ is defined and applied in the 2010 Equality Act.
After traversing many different appeal processes, the case finally ended at the UK’s highest court and concluded the definition does not include trans people.
“The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex,” Lord Hodge said in his oral reading of the ruling.
The decision is expected to have wide-ranging implications for the trans community, as well as organisations, public bodies and services who may be forced to update their policies on single-sex spaces, inclusion and discrimination. Some, including the Football Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board, have already taken steps to bar trans women from taking part in female matches.
In the wake of the ruling, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – the UK’s equalities watchdog – issued interim guidance which said single-sex spaces must be based on biology whereby a trans woman must not be allowed to use a female toilet and a trans man not allowed to use a male one. However, the guidance also adds that, in “some circumstances,” trans women should also be banned from the men’s facilities and trans men from women’s facilities.
When asked to clarify this point by the BBC, the EHRC directed the broadcaster to a section of the Supreme Court ruling which states trans men could be excluded from women’s facilities “where reasonable objection is taken to their presence, for example because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance or attributes to which reasonable objection might be taken” in the context of a female-only space, such as a toilet.
In essence, when a trans man looks, well, too much like a man (because he is one) or when a trans woman looks, well, too much like a woman (because she is one), they can be totally excluded from gendered spaces and be forced to only use a unisex facility – assuming one is available.
If the circumstances which would see trans men – who are defined by the court ruling as ‘biologically female’ – banned from female toilets is all about ‘masculine appearance’, then where does this leave masculine, cis women?
Whilst the Supreme Court case is supposedly about ‘protecting’ the interests of all women, this exception – in itself – shows there is only interest in protecting certain kinds of women. Namely, women who ‘look’ like women: traditionally feminine women with long hair, hips and visible breasts, who dress and talk and walk in a way that is ‘expected’ of women and who have no trouble moving through the world as one.
By contrast, there are plenty of other women out there who constantly have their gender and presentation policed by strangers for not fitting into the narrow and misogynistic definitions of what a woman should be. Women who are tall, have short hair, broad shoulders and square jawlines. Women who wear clothes from the men’s section and have deep voices and body hair. Women who are “incorrectly female,” Hannah Gadsby famously said.
Writing for Refinery29 in 2022, Yassine Senghor exemplifies this as “a dark-skinned Black, fat, masculine-presenting dyke with a shaved head who tends to lean towards clothing gendered as men’s” and said she has always been told she is “doing ‘woman’ wrong”. Similarly, in a different article for the publication, architect Martha said she has been made to feel that she is “failing at womanhood” and even when she presented more femininely was questioned about her gender.
Such slim definitions of what is correct or incorrect womanhood rooted in patriarchal beauty standards are – ironically enough – what feminists have actually spent decades fighting against, so that women have the choice about whether or not they want to shave their legs, wear make-up or put on dresses or *gasp* trousers.
The Supreme Court ruling will, very likely, cause butch and masculine lesbians to face increased harassment in single-sex female spaces simply because of how they present themselves. This is not a fictitious, dystopian musing by one dyke about the rights of others in her community, this is something we have already seen – and are continuing to see – when it comes to women do not fit into the confindes of traditional femininity and gender.
For Lesbian Visibility Week, which came a week after the Supreme Court’s decision, Labour MP Kate Osborne said she is “frequently misgendered”because of how she looks and expressed concern it will only get worse going forward.
“I note that Ministers said yesterday that there will be guidance regarding the Supreme Court verdict. That decision will have a huge impact on my life, on many other cis lesbians and, indeed, on heterosexual women,” Osborne told fellow MPs. “I suspect that I will get challenged even more now when accessing facilities. The impact on my life will be problematic, but the impact on my trans siblings’ lives will be significantly worse.”
Just this week, across the pond, in the United States, a number of headlines were dedicated to an incident involving lesbian woman Ansley Baker who was removed from a female toilet in a Boston hotel by a male security guard after being accused of being ‘a man’ by other women in the facility. The irony that it was a male security guard who banged on the cubical door and removed her when her shorts were not fully done up has not been lost on most in the LGBTQ+ community, it must be noted.
Baker is certainly not the first, nor will she likely be the last, lesbian to face such treatment, with other incidents from recent years including the partner of children’s author Jessica Walton and poet Eloise Stonborough, whilst Martha told R29 she has “some kind of confrontation or experience in a public bathroom every few months” after starting to present in a more butch way.
But, tight confines and strict parameters of what constitutes correct womanliness and the social punishments inflicted when broken are not solely restricted to masculine lesbians, straight women too have subject to such policing.
In 2023, the pregnant girlfriend of Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel actor Erin Darke, was transvestigated by anti-trans pundits on social media because she happens to be taller than Radcliffe and have certain facial features. Transvesigation refers to conspiracy theories that falsely claim individuals, typically women, are transgender and are hiding their “true” gender identity, with Drake accused of ‘secretly being trans’. Transvesitigations are entirely rooted in warped, deeply misogynistic and racist, views of femininity and gender.
Similarly, Olympic boxer Imane Khelif – who was thrust into the centre of a gender storm during the Paris Games – was accused of ‘being a man’ despite the fact she, and Olympic bosses, clarified she is not nor has ever identified as trans. In fact in Algeria, where Khelif hails from, gender-affirming care is banned and public gender non-conformity has the potential to be prosecuted as “indecent” under the 1966 penal code. However, people failed to engage the grey matter in their brains and the conspiracy persisted because, according to the wisdom of users on X/Twitter, Khelif has a strong nose, muscles, is tall and has hairs on her knuckles, so must be male.
Other cis women who are seemingly not woman enough according to transphobes include rugby icon Ilona Maher, tennis legend Serena Williams and former first lady Michelle Obama. Why? Again, because their bodies have dared to exist outside of patriarchal beauty standards, defined and controlled by the the male gaze.
As organisations, public bodies and services across the UK look set to draw up fresh guidelines in response to the Supreme Court ruling we will all do well to remember that gender policing does far, far more harm than ever does any good. At best it can be an irritant for women who move through the world everyday in a more masculine presentation, at its worst it poses an inherent threat to the people such an ill-thought out ruling is supposed to protect; putting woman who do not conform at risk of harassment, abuse and vigliante justice.
As Hannah Gadsby explained when she described herself as being ‘incorrectly female’, she was beaten up for being visibly lesbian and accepted that was what she was worth, because that is what the world told her.
“He beat the shit out of me and nobody stopped him. And I didn’t report that to the police and I did not take myself to the hospital and I should have. And you know why I didn’t? Because I thought that is all I was worth,” she explained during her stand up show Nanette. “And that was not homophobia pure and simple, people, that was gendered. If I’d have been feminine, that would not have happened. I am incorrectly female, I am incorrect, and that is a punishable offence.”
At its heart gender policing just proves – just like their views on the beautiful diversity of gender are narrow – the views of bigots on womanhood are equally as restrictive.
Like most Americans, I love visiting old places, whether Savannah, Seattle, or Santa Fe. I love historic architecture, gardens, and sacred sites. I like nothing better than hearing music in an old church, eating at a legacy restaurant, or staying at an old Airbnb.
But until a few years ago, I didn’t see myself in the historic sites I toured—not in the grand mansions built by the robber barons in the 19th century from Newport to the Coast of California, nor even in the homes of the founding fathers, from George Washington to John Adams. Though I enjoyed visiting and learned a lot, it was as if the place had to be for fancy or rich people to be a place people cared to save.
In recent years, historic places have begun to tell more stories about the many people who lived and worked there. Those stories can help people see themselves in the place and feel that sense of belonging that is essential for our mental and emotional health and to recognize the connections between us.
The descendants of Italian immigrants see themselves in the stories told at New York’s Tenement Museum and how their experience was like that of Irish immigrants. Jewish people can see themselves in the historic Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, and hear how religious freedom was equally essential to Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians. African-Americans can see themselves in the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and understand how civil rights impact everyone.
Lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, and queer people can see themselves at places that now tell these stories. From Iberia, Lousiana’s Shadows-on-the-Teche, which tells the story of not only of the plantation economy, but also of Weeks Hall and the creative society of straight and queer preservationists in Louisiana. The Pauli Murray House in Durham, North Carolina, tells the story of the lawyer, writer, and Episcopalian saint, Pauli Murray, who questioned her gender. These places tell stories that are layered and complex and include everyone in the history of America.
I’m deeply grateful we tell these stories. I wish these stories had been told when I was younger, because historic places do more than just educate visitors about the past. For many Americans, they are sources of profound personal meaning. But as the Trump Administration moves to erase stories about the fight for equality and equal representation, the stakes have never been higher.
Recently, the National Park Service removed references to transgender and queer people from the website for the Stonewall National Monument. This move completely negates the instrumental role of transgender and queer people who participated in the revolt that jump-started a more activist gay rights movement. This erasure not only prevents transgender and queer people from seeing themselves in our history, and knowing that they will be part of our future, it also erases the connections and complexity for everyone who cares about the progress of the United States toward a more perfect union.
This erasure can also be a matter of life and death for young people.
When I first consciously knew I was gay, my first thought was, Oh, that’s what I am. My second, and immediate, thought was, if anyone ever finds out, I will be killed. For over a decade after that, I was closeted. From time to time, I considered suicide. The rate of suicide among LGBTQ teens is four times the national average.
I wish I had heard and known the stories of LGBTQ+ people like Pauli Murray or Weeks Hall in the places I visited back then. The stories of these places may have given me a sense of belonging, of seeing myself in the world, and in this place we call the United States of America.
The same principle applies to all of us, regardless of who we love or what we look like. That’s why we must continue to tell these stories. They represent the history of our country’s quest to form a more perfect union and ensure that we live up to the ideals on which it was founded.
For 22-year-old Alex Ann, conversations about transgender women are black and white.
“Trans women are women,” said Ann, who identifies as a nonbinary trans person.
And when it comes to trans women competing in female sports — an issue that the Trump administration has made part of its policy agenda since Inauguration Day — Ann said that trans women should have all the same rights as cisgender women.
“When you are talking about what a woman is, well now you’re talking about checking to see if you’re really a woman,” said Ann, a South Florida resident. “And the kind of violation that in and of itself poses” goes too far, Ann continued.
Ann represents the views of just over a third of Gen Z, or 36%, that trans women should be allowed to participate in female sports, according to the new NBC News Stay Tuned Poll, powered by SurveyMonkey. That level of support, from respondents ages 18-29, was the highest of any generation in the poll of 19,682 American adults.
Overall, 1 in 4 respondents, or 25%, said they supported trans women participating in female sports in a yes/no question. The other 75% of American adults said they do not believe trans women should be permitted to participate in female sports.
Cecilia Pogue, a 21-year-old college student from Virginia, said she believes that allowing trans women to compete in female sports comes at the expense of cisgender women.
“We want people to feel comfortable in their skin,and we want them to have opportunities, but we also need to make sure we’re not taking opportunities away from the majority to please the minority,” Pogue said.
Many Gen Zers who spoke with NBC News about the topic discussed the complexity and nuances around it, such as how going through male puberty or taking hormone suppressants could affect a trans woman’s physical development.
“A lot could be fixed by having a separate column for trans sports,” said Julian Miller, 22, from Texas. “Just like how we separate male and females, we should separate trans males and trans females to compete against each other. I know there might not be a lot of competition at first, but as the sport grows, so will the competition.”
The poll found a significant gender gap between young men and women on the issue. About 3 in 4 Gen Z men (72%) say transgender women should not be allowed to play female sports, compared with about half of young women (56%).
Advocates of trans women competing in female sports say that the marginal number of trans women competing at an elite level makes the topic a nonissue. In December, NCAA President Charlie Baker testified that he was aware of fewer than 10 transgender athletes out of more than 500,000 total NCAA college student-athletes, which would equal 0.002% of this college student-athlete population.
“This is really a distraction,” Ann said. “It matters, but it’s not what is most important right now.”
Jay Baca, a 26-year-old who identifies as nonbinary, noted that when trans men compete in men’s sports “nobody bats an eye about it.”
“It still comes down to patriarchy, sexism and transphobia,” the Colorado native said.
But despite the criticism and the relatively low numbers of people involved, it has undeniably become a hot-button political issue in recent years.
Critics of trans women in female sports say trans women have an unfair advantage past puberty due to their body composition. Differences in body mass, bone density and height that trans women may have, Pogue said, can create a “dangerous” environment.
“I don’t really want to play soccer against a 6-[foot]-2 person who already went through puberty and then changed late high school or in early college,” she said.
Vito Milino, 22, of California, said trans women should not compete in “full-contact or highly physical sports alongside cisgender women” but sees no problem in other sports.
San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball program became a flashpoint in the national conversation over trans women and women’s sports recently, as has swimming, a noncontact sport. In 2022, Lia Thomas made history when she became the first openly trans woman to win an NCAA championship while competing for the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team. Thomas had spent the first two years of her collegiate career on Penn’s men’s team.
The NCAA in February changed its rules following an executive order from President Donald Trump, with the collegiate athletics organization instituting a new policy that “limits competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”
Then, on Monday, the Trump administration said that Penn violated laws that guaranteed equal protections for women in sports by allowing a trans swimmer to compete on the school’s women’s team and into team facilities. The Education Department previously announced an investigation of San Jose State.
Still, some medical experts caution against misconceptions that fuel much of the dialogue around trans women in female sports.
“Trans women are people who want to participate in society as the gender they identify as being — women,” said Bradley Anawalt, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who rejects the notion that trans women are changing for athletic advantages.
“They are not undergoing gender-affirming hormone therapy to attempt to have greater success in sports,” he said. “Gender-affirming therapy, hormone therapy is not easy. It requires doctor visits, blood tests and frequent doses of medications that might include shots.”
When it comes to body composition, he added, “The competitive advantage of elite male athletes starts with puberty when blood testosterone concentrations increase to adult male levels.”
Alithia Zamantakis, an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing, sees the higher Gen Z poll numbers in support of trans women competing in female sports as compared with older demographics as an indicator of a shift in “society at large.”
“We can expect greater and greater support for transgender rights as the myths and anti-trans” rhetoric are demystified, she said.
Missing from the conversation is a “balancing of equities,” according to Lanae Erickson, senior vice president for social policy, education and politics at Third Way, a Democratic-aligned Washington, D.C., think tank.
“Sports are fabulous ways to learn all kinds of values — teamwork, persistence and healthy habits,” she said. “And just saying that an entire class of people can’t participate in any sport at any level, it really goes against those values and is a real detriment to that group of people.”
“We also do need rules about participation in sports,” Erickson added.
“But I think those rules should be made based on fairness and safety, not based on animus towards a certain group of people,” she continued.
This NBC News Stay Tuned poll was powered by SurveyMonkey, the fast, intuitive feedback management platform where 20 million questions are answered daily. It was conducted online April 11-20 among a national sample of 19,682 adults ages 18 and over. Reported percentages exclude item nonresponse and round to the nearest percentage point. The estimated margin of error for this survey among all adults is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
Central to heteronormativity is a presupposition that people are “naturally” cisgender and heterosexual, and that values, laws, and institutions should be organized accordingly. Within this framework, gender and sexual nonconformity are framed as medical or psychological disorders and immoral perversions of religious teachings. Power structures are organized in ways that favor people who identify as cisgender and heterosexual (especially men) and marginalize people who identify with differing sexual and/or gender categories, or who otherwise fall outside of heteronormative standards.
Perhaps the most impressive feat of heteronormativity is its clever obfuscation of the fact that it, in and of itself, is a gender ideology, a set of social norms that requires continuous buy-in and cultural maintenance. Instead of owning this reality, people enforce heteronormativity by enmeshing its core assertions into what they feel are “irrefutable truths” about God and nature.
As part of a series of executive orders that have attempted to impose a Christian nationalist agenda, President Donald Trump declared: “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.”
A quintessential example of heteronormativity, describing a binary sex as “incontrovertible reality” is a rhetorical device that ignores intersex people and fails to capture the complex cultural variations of gender. Phrases like this are frequently weaponized against the lived experiences of trans individuals and add force to policies that prohibit trans civil and legal protections. Simply put, the purpose of this executive order is to delegitimize and ultimately erase trans and gender nonconforming individuals from US society.
Wielding power through policing gender
Policing the boundaries of gender identity and punishing the expression of gender nonconformity is a hallmark of authoritarian governments. This is likely because control over such a personal and intimate aspect of one’s life allows for the wielding of greater political and structural power. A prime example of this is Nazi Germany, where Hitler and his followers constructed rigid gender norms and classification schemes that framed homosexuality and gender variance (particularly among men) as pathological and destructive to society. Tens of thousands of homosexual men and a small number of homosexual women were sent to concentration camps as part of the Holocaust’s broader antisemitic aims.
A more recent example is Russia, which, under the authoritarian control of Vladimir Putin, fosters an atmosphere of fear and oppression for its LGBTQ+ people. In addition to fostering a strongly negative public opinion about same-sex relationships and gender transitions, Russia provides no LGBTQ+ legal protections or laws against anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes, and it prohibits legal name changes and gender-transitioning care for trans people. In 2023, its Supreme Court designated the “international LGBT movement” as “extremist,” which has only exacerbated persecution and hate crimes against sexual and gender minorities.
Many conservative religions also authoritatively police the boundaries of sexual/gender identity and expression. Among other right-leaning US faiths, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) frames same-sex relations and gender transitions as sinful and oppositional to divine teachings. While its rhetoric about LGBTQ+ people has softened significantly in the past half-century, its current policies exclude people in same-sex relationships and those who have undergone a physical and/or social gender transition from central ecclesiastical privileges.
These privileges include access to temple worship, participation in priesthood rituals, and appointment to leadership opportunities. In the Summer of 2024, LDS authorities implemented a more stringent crackdown on trans members, mandating specific bathroom usage, requiring trans individuals to attend gender-specific meetings according to their assigned biological sex, and barring trans adults from serving as teachers or working with children.
These types of policies reflect the persistent fearmongering common in today’s MAGA politics, which deceptively frames trans individuals as perpetrators of violence, particularly against children. In actuality, LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly youth, are victims of sexual violence far more often than the general population, and cisgender men commit sexual violence more frequently than all sexual and gender minority demographics combined. Donald Trump, himself convicted of sexual abuse, exemplifies this irony – he routinely disparages trans people and frames them as sexually predatory, when he himself has a long history of predatory behavior.
The logical and ethical problems of legally enforcing a gender binary
If a cisgender binary truly were an “incontrovertible reality,” why then would it need to be enforced legally? This question exposes an inconvenient paradox that right-wing political and religious regimes seek to avoid. They rely on biological and religious claims of innate gender differences while contradictorily asserting the perpetual need to enforce the social and legal boundaries of gender expression.
Trump’s executive order and religiopolitical sentiments like it portray gender as both biologically immutable and a shifting product of sociocultural and legal standards. You simply cannot have it both ways. As associate professor of religion at Kalamazoo College, Taylor Petrey, points out, “If biology was immutable, it wouldn’t need to be enforced.”
The very need to create laws and policies that assert a cisgender worldview reveals how fragile heteronormativity really is. After all, the presence and visibility of more diverse gender identities and expressions by no means threatens the legitimacy of long-existing cisgender and heterosexual identities. Categorically speaking, trans and gender nonconforming individuals pose no dangers to society and deserve a full measure of dignity and equality.
Nevertheless, Donald Trump’s policies are emblematic of white, cisgender, heterosexual campaigns in the US that seek to preserve political power and privilege at all costs. And the anger and hatred that the MAGA movement expresses toward gender nonconformity is a symptom of deep fear and insecurity regarding increased equity and inclusion for people different from them.
That is exactly why the Trump administration has obliterated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and initiatives. It is also why conspiracy theories describing school children being indoctrinated into trans identities and gender-affirming surgery are so widespread. Conspiracies are born out offear andfragility, not out of compassion and clarity. Thus, Trump’s legislation that negates important legal protections for and attacks the legitimacy of gender minorities is not about promoting harmony and well-being in society, but about the preservation of power and a specific type of extremist political and religious identity.
During a press conference on April 22, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced his filing of a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ). The suit challenges the president’s anti-trans executive order directing agencies to withhold federal funding from educational programs that allow transgender girls to compete on women’s sports teams, under the claim that it violates both constitutional rights and Title IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The order in question, signed February 5, attempts to bar trans students from competing on school sports teams matching their gender identity, by revoking federal funding from public schools that don’t comply.
However, the MHRA prohibits discrimination based on protected classes like sexual orientation and gender identity—a clear conflict of interest.
But the DOJ responded by sending a letter five days later threatening to sue Minnesota if the state did not comply. The department continued to threaten the state in an April 8 letter and, and in an April 16 press conference, the DOJ stated it would seek “judicial resolution” and withhold funds from Minnesota if they refused compliance.
Recently, Ellison called their bluff and took the first shot, announcing that Minnesota would sue the DOJ and the president in his official capacity on four legal claims.
“I’m not gonna sit around waiting for the Trump administration to sue Minnesota,” Ellison said during the press conference. “Today, Minnesota is suing him and his administration because we will not participate in this shameful bullying—we will not let a small group of vulnerable children who are only trying to be healthy and live their lives be demonized, many of their parents are here today, and I thank them for their presence. The bottom line is: In our Minnesota, everyone is included in the circle of our compassion, and no one is out of our circle of protection.”
Sometimes countries face a moment like this—faced with a leader bent on destroying entire communities and instilling fear in those who protect them.Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison
The four main legal claims state that Trump’s order is invalid because the administration is trying to use the powers that the Constitution reserves to Congress.
The second claim argues that the order violates Title IX, a common argument the Trump administration uses to enforce the order. However, this interpretation is highly contested, and attempts by the Trump administration to redefine it to fit their interpretation have been blocked by courts.
The third claim states that the order violates the Administrative Procedures Act which requires courts to “set aside agency action” that is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” The fourth and final argument—and one of the more serious accusations—is that the order violates the 10th Amendment by trying to override a state law despite the amendment giving states the right to self govern.
This lawsuit is yet another in a series of lawsuits Minnesota has brought against the Trump administration.
One notable case from early February saw Minnesota joining with three other states to sue the Trump administration for an executive order threatening to cut federal grants to hospitals that provide gender-affirming treatment to individuals under 19. The plaintiffs argued that the order violated their 10th Amendment rights, and a federal judge ruled that Trump’s order could not be enforced in four plaintiff states.
The recently filed lawsuit also echoes a similar situation with Maine, whose leaders have refused to follow the anti-trans sports ban, and have since been hit by federal agencies withholding funding to the state.
“Sometimes countries face a moment like this—faced with a leader bent on destroying entire communities and instilling fear in those who protect them,” Ellison said in the press conference. “The lessons of history tell us a leader like that doesn’t stop at one community—after he’s destroyed one, he goes after another, and another, and another.”
I run hot and cold with Bill Maher. Personally, I prefer John Oliver or Stephen Colbert. Yes, Maher has his moments reveling in provocation, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
I remember when he tangled with National Review Editor Rich Lowry about January 6 last fall before the election and the fact that Lowry was voting for Donald Trump. It dumbfounded me, and still does, that people can condemn Trump for January 6, trash him as undemocratic, and then go out on Election Day and pull the lever for him. Maher called out Lowry’s hypocrisy.
But last week Maher proved his hypocrisy and his obtuseness. After being invited to dinner at the White House, Maher emerged not just impressed but charmed. Yes, charmed, as if he’d just spent an evening with Trump akin to Smithers doddering around and supplicating to Montgomery Burns on The Simpsons. Both fawning over a man who treats others like garbage.
In recounting the evening to the New York Post, Maher gushed that Trump was “fun” and “generous,” even touting the “sweet” gift he received. “And I know that as I say that, millions of liberal sphincters just tightened,” Maher quipped.
Well, Bill, in this instance, you are the sphincter.
That might sound crude, but I have a synonym in mind that’s better — begins with an a and ends in an e. Because while Maher is patting himself on the back for being iconoclastic and unpredictable, he’s doing exactly what Trump wants, and that is normalizing a man who is not only inherently dangerous but who wreaks havoc on innocent lives and democracy.
I’ve spoken to many people who’ve known Trump personally, and every one of them, including Mary Trump, Anthony Scaramucci, and the author of Apprentice in Wonderland, Ramin Setoodeh, who met with Trump nine times. They all told me the same thing. In person, Donald Trump can be disarmingly charming.
That’s his greatest con. He knows how to smile just enough, compliment you just right, and make you feel special. But it’s a trick. A mask. Because behind that charade is a man bent on destruction who only cares about one thing — himself.
Maher was duped, like so many others. He’s no different than House Republicans who lick Trump’s feet, tech CEOs and Wall Street titans who fear a Truth Social tantrum, and big law firms that are scrambling to be extorted by the “Dear Leader.”
Maher’s fatal mistake wasn’t going to dinner. It was giving the impression, publicly and gleefully, that Trump is harmless. Even fun. Because Trump is neither. In just three months since returning to office, he has launched an all-out assault against decency and empathy. Trump has never been decent and never cared about anyone but himself..
Trump has already signed legislation that slashes Medicare and Medicaid with the recent stopgap spending bill. These are two lifelines for the poor and elderly, and the cuts come while proposing yet another round of tax breaks for the ultrawealthy. If you’re rich, you’re popping champagne. If you’re sick, disabled, or aging in poverty? Unlike Maher, you won’t be invited to the White House.
He has gutted DEI programs across the federal government, targeting racial equity initiatives, LGBTQ+ protections, and disability access. He has directed agencies to erase the word “transgender” from official documents. He’s not just trying to suppress an identity, he’s trying to wipe transgender people from existence.
Internationally, his cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development are decimating lifesaving programs. Particularly in Africa, where funding for HIV and AIDS treatment and prevention has been drastically slashed. UNAIDS estimatesthat just a 10 percent drop in international funding could result in over 500,000 additional AIDS-related deaths per year. Trump’s cuts aren’t just heartless. They’re lethal.
Meanwhile, he has used the full power of the presidency to target and ruin private citizens. Just last week, Trump signed executive orders targeting two officials from his first term, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor. They dared to tell the truth about the first term.
These aren’t just symbolic acts. Trump’s rhetoric and executive vendettas lead directly to death threats, financial ruin, and lives lived in hiding. Krebs and Taylor, like so many others, now must live with security threats, legal bills, and fear. They aren’t billionaires. They can’t buy safety. Maher can. He won’t lose a moment of sleep if Trump ever turns on him.
And yet Maher dismisses Trump’s monstrous record as if it were a punch line. He waves off the racist birtherism Trump peddled for years, the calls for a Muslim ban, the mocking of a disabled journalist, the infamous “shithole countries” remark, the praise for white supremacists in Charlottesville. The sexual assault allegations? The encouragement of political violence? The cozying up to dictators?
I’ve written extensively about Trump’s manipulative appeal. I’ve talked to Mary Trump, who knows the pathology firsthand, and Scaramucci, who confessed to how quickly and easily he got swept up before realizing the nightmare. Setoodeh chronicled Trump’s obsession with media and fame, and his desperate need to control every narrative.
That’s what makes moments like Maher’s dinner so dangerous. Trump lives for this kind of PR. He doesn’t need your vote, just your platform. He’ll use your kindness as a cudgel against your values. And he’s doing it now.
Here’s what Maher misses entirely: When Trump ruins someone’s life, it’s not entertainment. When he cuts programs, people die. When he targets minorities, children lose access to food, housing, and medicine. When he tries to erase a transgender person, their mental health suffers incredibly. When he tweets about private citizens, they’re forced into hiding. This isn’t funny. It’s fascism. It’s real.
Bill Maher went to dinner and came back with a gift. I hope it was worth it, because the rest of us are still counting the cost and bracing for the impending impact of Trump’s “gifts” to us.
So no, Bill, it’s not “millions of liberal sphincters” tightening. It’s millions of Americans tightening their grip on survival, health care, civil rights, and hope while you wine and dine at a fancy dinner with the man who wants to take it all away.
In his proclamation for National Child Abuse Prevention Month, rather than addressing real threats to children like the federal government should do, United States President Donald J. Trump focused almost exclusively on attacking supporters of transgender youth. He declared broadly defined “gender ideology” as “one of the most prevalent forms of child abuse” and labeled gender-affirming care as “evil”.
Gender-affirming care is recognized as the gold standard of medical care for transgender youth by majormedicalassociations. This care consists of social practices (changes to one’s name, wardrobe, etc.) to mental health counseling to medical interventions, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapies. In all, the care emphasizes a personalized, multidisciplinary, and gradual approach. Studiesdemonstrate that youth receiving this care experience 60 percent lower odds of depression and 73 percent lower odds of suicidality, with approximately 98 percent of youth continuing this care into adulthood.
Contrary to the proclamation’s assertions about the prevalence of gender-affirming care, a dataset of private insurance claims from 2018-2022 covering more than 5 million adolescents found that less than 3,000 transgender youth had access to puberty blockers or hormone therapies. Currently, 27 states ban some form of gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
A January 28, 2025, executive order aims to withdraw federal funds and support for such care to people younger than 19.
The proclamation’s language also echoes state-level efforts to weaponize child welfare systems against supportive families of transgender youth. In 2022, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered state agenciesto investigate parents whose children receive gender-affirming care, jeopardizing their custodial rights. This year, Texas and Montana advanced legislation to classify some or all gender-affirming care as child abuse.
Raiden Hung, of Jurassic Gymnastics in Boston, relaxes after competing on the uneven bars at the NAIGC national competition in Pittsburgh on Friday.Gene J. Puskar / AP
PITTSBURGH — Raiden Hung can’t imagine a life without gymnastics. And to be honest, he doesn’t want to.
There’s always been something about the sport that’s called to him. Something about flipping. Something about the discipline it requires. Something about the mixture of joy and calm he feels whenever he steps onto a mat.
“It keeps me sane, I guess,” the 21-year-old student at Northeastern University in Boston said. “Gymnastics is the love of my life basically.”
The hours in the gym have long served as a constant for Hung. The one thing he can always depend on. The one place where he can truly feel like himself.
Still, Hung feared he would be forced to give up gymnastics when he realized in his late teens that he was nonbinary. He had identified as female most of his life and competed in women’s events growing up. He says he now identifies as trans-masculine.
Part of Hung’s transition included beginning hormone replacement therapy, something he considered putting off over worries that it meant he would no longer be able to compete.
“It was sort of like, ‘Do I have to make a choice?’” Hung said. “And that would have probably been awful for my mental stability, like having to choose between the two.”
The National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs gave Hung safe harbor. The stated mission of the steadily growing organization that includes more than 2,500 athletes and 160 clubs across the country is to provide a place for college and adult gymnasts to continue competing while “pushing the boundaries of the sport.”
Ten Harder, of Boston University Gymnastics Club in Boston, dismounts the balance beam at the NAIGC national competition .Gene J. Puskar / AP
That includes, but is hardly limited to, being as gender-inclusive as possible.
During local NAIGC meets, for example, there are no gender categories. Athletes compete against every other athlete at their designated skill level, which can run from novice/developmental routines to ones that wouldn’t look out of place at an NCAA Division I meet.
Gymnasts can also hop on whatever apparatus they want. Women on parallel bars. Men on the balance beam. Just about anything goes. At its annual national meet, the NAIGC even offers the “decathlon,” which allows athletes of all gender identities to compete against each other across all 10 disciplines — six in men’s, four in women’s — of artistic gymnastics.
“(We want) people to be able to continue doing gymnastics into adulthood in a way that feels comfortable and safe and supportive for them,” said Ilana Shushanky, NAIGC’s director of operations.
A challenging climate
The approach comes as transgender athletes find themselves the target of increasingly heated rhetoric.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February that gave federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration’s view, which interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth. A day later, the NCAA said it would limit competition in women’s sports to athletes who were assigned female at birth.
The message to the transgender community at large was clear: You do not belong here. Several trans and/or nonbinary members of the NAIGC, which is independently run and volunteer-led and does not rely on federal money to operate, felt it.
Multiple trans or nonbinary athletes who spoke to The Associated Press said they pondered quitting following last fall’s election, despondent over what at times feels like an increasingly hostile environment toward their community.
None did. One viewed stepping away as ceding power over a part of who they are to someone else. Another pointed to the social aspect of gymnastics and how vital the feeling of acceptance in their home gym was to maintaining proper mental and emotional health.
“Part of my identity is as an athlete and to see myself as strong and able to do hard things,” said Wes Weske, who is nonbinary and previously competed in the decathlon before recently graduating from medical school. “I think (gymnastics) really helped my self-image and was just an important part of understanding myself.”
A sense of normalcy
That sense of belonging was everywhere at the NAIGC’s national competition in early April. For three days, more than 1,700 athletes, including a dozen who registered their gender as “other,” turned a convention center hall in downtown Pittsburgh into what could best be described as a celebration.
Not just of gymnastics. But of diversity. And inclusion. It all looked and felt and sounded like any other large-scale meet. Cheers from one corner following a stuck dismount. Roars from another corner encouraging a competitor to hop back up after a fall.
Raiden Hung, of Jurassic Gymnastics in Boston, center left, celebrates with teammate Fay Malay after competing in the floor exercise.Gene J. Puskar / AP
For Hung and the 11 “other” competitors allowed to choose whether to compete in the men’s or women’s divisions, nationals provided the opportunity to salute the judges and stand alongside their teammates while being seen for who they really are.
When Hung dismounted from his uneven bars routine, several members of Jurassic Gymnastics, the all-adult competitive team based in Boston that Hung joined, came over to offer a hug, pep talk or both.
The group included Eric Petersen, a 49-year-old married father of two teenagers who competed on the men’s team at the Air Force Academy 30 years ago. He now dabbles in women’s artistic gymnastics alongside Hung at Jurassic.
“Certain people want to convince people that this is a big issue and people are losing their (minds),” Petersen said. “But it’s not like that. Other groups can be uptight about that if they want. But in this group, it’s about the love of the sport. If you love the sport, then do the sport and have fun, no matter who you are.”
Finding their way
Ten Harder got into gymnastics after being inspired by watching Gabby Douglas win gold at the 2012 Olympics. They spent their childhood competing as a woman but became increasingly uncomfortable at meets as they grew older.
Ten Harder, of Boston University Gymnastics Club in Boston, waits to compete on the balance beam.Gene J. Puskar / AP
Harder, 22, now a Ph. D. student at Boston University who identifies as nonbinary/trans masculine, felt like they had to make their own path. They connected on TikTok with a nonbinary gymnast from the Netherlands and started competing in a uniform that felt more natural, a practice leotard similar to a tank top and shorts. Over the last couple of years, they have run across other nonbinary or queer athletes, easing their sense of loneliness.
While there are times Harder admits they still grapple with feeling self-conscious about their gender identity even around teammates who have become friends and allies, there is also something greater at play.
“I think it’s important to remember that trans athletes are just people, too,” he said. “We deserve to be in the sports that we love. And we deserve to get a chance to compete and do everything just as other people do.”
USA Fencing said on Thursday its decision to disqualify a female fencer from a recent event in Maryland after she refused to compete against a transgender opponent was in line with rules established by the sport’s governing body.
The incident occurred on March 30 during a USA Fencing-sanctioned regional tournament that was not an NCAA event.
At the tournament, Stephanie Turner discarded her mask and took a knee in protest ahead of her bout against transgender opponent Redmond Sullivan and was then issued a black card by the referee, resulting in her expulsion from the event.
USA Fencing said its responsibility is to ensure that all athletes, regardless of their personal positions, compete under the same rules established by International Fencing Federation (FIE), the sport’s governing body.
“In the case of Stephanie Turner, her disqualification, which applies to this tournament only, was not related to any personal statement but was merely the direct result of her decision to decline to fence an eligible opponent, which the FIE rules clearly prohibit,” USA Fencing said in a statement.
“USA Fencing is obligated to follow the letter of those rules and ensure that participants respect the standards set at the international level.”
Turner, speaking to Fox News Digital, said she made the decision to take a knee the previous night when she realized whom she would be competing against.
“Redmond was under the impression that I was going to start fencing. So when I took the knee, I looked at the ref and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I cannot do this. I am a woman, and this is a man, and this is a women’s tournament. And I will not fence this individual.’” Turner told Fox News, misgendering Sullivan.
The incident gained steam on social media on Wednesday with tennis great and gay rights trailblazer Martina Navratilova, who has argued that trans women have unfair physical advantages, among those to weigh in.
“This is what happens when female athletes protest! Anyone here still thinks this is fair??? I am fuming… and shame on @USAFencing, shame on you for doing this. How dare you throw women under the gender bullshit bus!!!” Navratilova said on X.
USA Fencing enacted its current transgender and nonbinary athlete policy in 2023, which it said is based on the principle that everyone should have the ability to participate in sports and was based upon the research available of the day.
“We understand that the conversation on equity and inclusion pertaining to transgender participation in sport is evolving,” said USA Fencing.
“USA Fencing will always err on the side of inclusion, and we’re committed to amending the policy as more relevant evidence-based research emerges, or as policy changes take effect in the wider Olympic & Paralympic movement.”
