Identity and International Implications - Criminalization, Experimentation, and the Violent Depiction of Trans People in the U.S.
by Vivienne Arndt
Content Warning: This piece contains non-graphic references to suicide and mental health.
I. Introduction
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” In this order, Trump criticized gender, calling it an “identity-based, inchoate social concept.” [1] Trump argued that the “biological reality of sex” is the determining factor in someone’s gender, stressing that ideologues have allowed “men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women.” [2] He also mandated that his administration use “clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.” [3] This act set the tone for executive orders, public statements, and state laws that have since criminalized and alienated transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals, violated their rights, and labeled them as extremists. It has also laid the groundwork for other devastating policies that will be covered in this paper by tasking the Attorney General with ensuring that the Bureau of Prisons revises its policies about medical care in accordance with the executive order, embodying the idea that Federal funds should not be used to affirm an inmate’s gender identity.
U.S. President Trump signs an executive order. [4]
Former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGC) and current President of Genocide Watch, Dr. Gregory Stanton, indicates that this executive order, which denies gender beyond a male-female sex distinction, underscores a “totalitarian” hardening of gender categories that is reminiscent of Nazi ideology, another regime that ultimately killed many LGBTQ+ members for existing outside of a supposed binary. [5, 6]
II. Transness and Toxic (Fragile) Masculinity
Understanding toxic masculinity as embodying inflexibility, aggressiveness, and domination, the treatment of trans people as a “fascistic other” fits right in. The autocratic enforcement of two distinct, inflexible gender categories and a tendency toward aggression when these categories are violated aligns deeply with the toxic-masculine stance of leaders of the US government. The choice to target trans people in particular as the group to be feared and used as a tool for political and financial power is a particularly interesting one, as it points back to toxic-masculine ideals in our nation’s leadership. Central to the concept of toxic masculinity is the strict category of “man” that has a set of distinct characteristics (see some of the main characteristics that align with toxic masculinity in Marco Cisneros-Farber's piece). Bigots cannot accept the fact that, within the male gender, there are trans-masculine individuals who do not fit the rigid, biological narrative, not to mention trans-women, who were assigned male at birth but do not fit neatly into the category of “man.” [7]
Partly because it is inflexible, toxic masculinity is a rather fragile theory that requires constant defense. Journalist Jude Ellison S. Doyle argues that central to toxic masculinity in the leadership we observe in the Trump administration is, in fact, a kind of “gender performance.” He ties the adoption of toxic masculinity to a “suffocating anxiety about not performing one’s gender correctly,” which “is prone to being manipulated toward fascist ends.” Individuals who pursue toxic-masculine modes of being often feel that their position is under attack, which in turn triggers aggressive behaviour when their conception and expression of masculinity is challenged. [8] So the treatment of trans people is one way that the administration seeks to buy back an assurance of masculinity.
Even at a time when there is a significant number of out gay Republicans serving as part of the Trump administration, including, but not limited to, the current Treasury Secretary, a Deputy Ambassador to the UN, a former President of the Kennedy Center, and an Under Secretary of State, these officials nonetheless tend to conform to a certain look and ideology. [9] According to a recent New York Times article on the subject, “They’re not the type to be telling anyone their pronouns or using the word ‘queer.’ And they aren’t the least bit offended that the leader of their party continues to stoke a moral panic about transgender people.” [10]
Trump holding a flag with the message “LGBTs for TRUMP” during a campaign rally in Greeley, Colorado. [11]
The Log Cabin Republicans, a national Republican organization committed to representing LGBT conservatives, also has a bizarre history of standing behind Trump's anti-LGBTQ+ policies. [12] Executive Director of the Log Cabin Republicans, Ed Williams, has said, “Donald Trump is the best president for LGBT ever.” [13] Similar to the highly-ranked, so-called A-Gays of the Trump Administration, the Log Cabin Republicans bypass the hypocrisy of their stance to support and serve the administration. By rejecting progressive notions of homosexuality and queerness and staying quiet while Trump’s policies target transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive individuals, they look to bridge the gap between their community and the straight members of the GOP. As a result, it seems as if they are working within the same framework of toxic masculinity. [14]
Scott Bessent at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos. [15] Bessent serves as the United States Secretary of the Treasury, bearing a reputation as “The most powerful out gay man in the Trump administration,” while embodying a conventional presentation of masculinity. [16]
The perpetrators of toxic masculinity within the Trump administration feel uniquely threatened by trans folks, making their mission of criminalizing, terrorizing, and eliminating the trans population in the US a dually motivated one. In one sense, it works towards political aims by rallying a base against a common enemy to leverage power. In a second one, it functions well under a framework of toxic masculinity by embodying domination and a tendency toward aggression that is specifically motivated to eliminate and dismantle a group with the potential to disrupt their fragile, toxic-masculine ideals.
III. Genocide Against Trans People, and at What Stage?
Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, President of the Lemkin Institute, a nonprofit focused on genocide prevention, said in January of this year that the U.S. is in the “early-to-mid stages of a genocidal process against trans and nonbinary and intersex people.” Republican leaders have been using the population of trans people in the US to generate fear, especially surrounding “children, family, and their ideal concept of masculinity,” something that effectively “prime[s] their base for genocide.” [17]
In international law, genocide is defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” [18] Stanton of Genocide Watch affirms that our present administration is following this intent by trying to physically destroy a gender group. [19] For those genocide scholars who interpret the US as being in the early stages of genocide against trans people, they point to patterns of exclusion and dehumanization, which are shown to be early warning signs of genocide and extreme violence.
These indicators, to use the Lemkin Institutes' terminology, serve as “red flags” that current developments could carry forward “a mass atrocity event aimed at destroying one or more collective identities.” [20] One of the indicators is the use of eliminationist language. Language of the current administration perpetuates narratives that trans folk are less than human and/or criminals. In a White House Release, the administration describes the policies Trump has implemented against trans people in the US as having “shattered years of Democrat extremism, rescued a generation of children from irreversible harm, restored biological truth, and reclaimed America’s commitment to fairness, science, and sanity.” [21] In doing so, the administration undoubtedly implies that trans people present a legitimate threat to families and children and a well-functioning society. Another example comes from Republican Representative from Texas, Ronny Jackson, who called trans people “a cancer that is spreading across the country.” [22] Hateful language that labels trans people as extreme threats prepares the way for their isolation and elimination.
Other actions that could lay the groundwork for a destructive historical trajectory for trans people in the US include the proactive erosion of nondiscrimination protections. This has occurred after the President instructed agencies to examine “laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations” to ensure they align with the protection of “men and women as biologically distinct sexes.” The Trump administration aspires to redefine statutes that protect against sex discrimination in order to exclude applications for gender identity as well as sexual orientation. [23] This rolling back of anti-discrimination statutes has occurred in tandem with a sharp increase in bills against trans individuals. According to the Trans Legislation tracker, 2025 was the sixth consecutive year that broke the record for the number of anti-trans bills considered in the US. In 2026, 762 anti-trans bills are already under consideration. [24] Political shifts like these, alongside hateful, eliminationist rhetoric, create conditions that escalate risk and create prime conditions for violence against a group, according to former IAGS leader Henry Theriault. [25]
Those scholars who find the US to be in the mid-stages of a genocidal process against trans folk highlight the physical destruction of the gender group itself. The hostile environments created by laws against trans people contribute to mental health strain and elevated chances of suicide for trans people. [26] The Lemkin Institute finds that the laws against trans people parallel a model of action visible in the colonial genocide against indigenous American and Australian populations: the denial of identity, which in the colonial case was facilitated by institutions like boarding schools, where children were severely disciplined for speaking their native language, for example. According to the institute, “Denial of identity involves two main steps: preventing people from openly expressing an identity and destroying institutions that reproduce the identity.” Denial of identity works within a genocidal framework to erase a group by “allowing” them to live so long as they give up their marginalized identity. This type of suppression begins with incited hatred and hostility against the identity group, and is followed by suppression and criminalization, which function so that future expressions of the identity can be called illegal or threatening to the rest of the body politic, an activity that would demand a kind of aggression and violent retaliation that aligns well with toxic masculinity. [27]
IV. Recent examples
In this section, I will first explore some key instances of the criminalization and suppression of trans people in state law that have effectively made trans identity a punishable offense through mechanisms of license invalidation and enforcement of single-sex bathroom use. Second, I will examine the recent development of the denial of gender-affirming care in prisons, which occurs in tandem with increased implementation of conversion therapy practices that could meet some of the key criteria of unethical human experimentation. These policies that deny and dehumanize trans folk fit together with the administration’s narrative that privileges a toxic masculine conception of manhood and excludes trans people as obscure and destructive.
a. Criminalizing Identity
Part of President Trump’s 2025 Executive Order states that methods of federal identification must correspond to a person’s assigned sex at birth. This means that newly issued passports must include gender markers that don’t align with the experienced reality of trans people. The order endangers trans people who could plausibly be “outed” during border crossings. It also creates new difficulties for those entering the country with an “X” gender marker on their documents, a development that has led three EU countries to issue special travel advisories for trans individuals travelling to the US. [28, 29]
In April of this year, the State Department interpreted this new mandate, issuing the “Enhancing Vetting and Combatting Fraud in the Immigrant Visa Program.” With this program, visa applicants are required to disclose their listed sex at birth, which, again, denies the lived experiences of nonbinary, trans, and gender-expansive folk while laying the groundwork for trans immigrants to be deported under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(C)(i) for possession of a visa that exhibits fraud or willful misrepresentation. [30]
As of February 26, 2026, states like Kansas also began following the trend set by Trump’s executive order, with laws invalidating state-issued driver's licenses that include gender markers inconsistent with the license-holder’s sex at birth. In addition to preventing future transgender individuals from updating the gender on their driver’s licenses and state ID cards, the law offers no grace period for individuals to update their documents. Driving with these “invalidated” licenses is a punishable offense, with penalties that include fines or jail time. [31]
In line with the criminalization of gender markers that differ from someone’s sex at birth, Kansas’ Senate Bill 244 also requires trans individuals to use the restroom that corresponds with their biological sex at birth in public and government buildings. Violation of this law also comes with consequences. SB 244 lays the groundwork for a private right of action that allows individuals to sue transgender individuals for “bounty-style” penalties if they use bathrooms and single-sex spaces that affirm their gender identity. [32]
In March of 2026, Idaho passed a criminal law, House Bill 752, which criminalized trans folks who use bathrooms that align with their gender. In private and government buildings, the practice of “knowingly and willfully” entering a bathroom or single-sex designated room that doesn’t correspond with someone’s sex at birth is a misdemeanor offense. A second offense within five years amounts to a felony in the state. Idaho and Kansas, along with Utah, Florida, Montana, Ohio, and Wyoming, are some of the states that, at this time, have criminalized trans people who use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity rather than their sex at birth. [33] According to the Movement Advancement Project, 18% of transgender people in the US live in states that ban them from using bathrooms consistent with their gender identity in K-12 schools, colleges, and government-owned buildings. [34]
Protest sign outside of the Idaho State Capitol during Transgender Day of Visibility rally on March 31, 2026. [35]
This set of expanding laws hostile to trans people imposes a foreign gender identity on this group. [36] The Lemkin Institute reads some of these new policies, like the invalidation of licenses and IDs in states like Kansas, as explicit attempts to make trans people “out,” themselves by obtaining new licenses and identification, at risk of losing their ability to move. They warn that forced identification practices are a common precursor to genocidal acts and containment: not only do they streamline the process of tracking the “enemy” group, foreseeably for these ends, but they also normalize the targeting and harassment of trans people, which keeps them alienated as a group and central to discussions of threats to the body politic. [37]
b. Experimentation and Denial of Gender-Affirming Care in Prisons
Approximately 2,200 trans people exist in federal prisons. [38] In a recent Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) program statement on the “Management of Inmates with Gender Dysphoria,” new policies are outlined for those seeking gender-affirming care in prisons. Under the new policy, transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals will be denied access to healthcare and other gender-affirming articles like binders, bras, or makeup. [39] Although the 2025 Kingdom v. Trump et al. decision requires the Bureau of Prisons to provide hormones and social accommodations to inmates with gender dysphoria, the program seeks to dampen hormone treatment by mandating that individuals who only recently began receiving hormones will receive a tapering plan from their Primary Care Provider with the goal of “an appropriately paced discontinuation” or “rapid discontinuation of the hormone intervention” depending on the individual. [40]
While the program says that it assists individuals with gender dysphoria (GD) in their recovery, it specifically explains that the BOP “will not provide sex trait modification surgeries to address GD and the inmate will not receive sex trait modification surgeries to address GD.” Instead, it ascribes psychological treatment to “target psychological distress/dysphoria,” implying that individuals can “recover” from gender dysphoria with therapy and a full detransition. This is a goal eerily similar to that of conversion therapy, as defined by organizations like the Trevor Project. [41] While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 TR) calls gender dysphoria a mental disorder, it is widely affirmed that transitioning reduces gender dysphoria significantly as well as associated mental health issues like anxiety and depression. In a systematic literature review conducted by Cornell University on peer-reviewed articles written about the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being, it was found that there is a robust international consensus that “gender transition, including medical treatments such as hormone therapy and surgeries, improves the overall well-being of transgender individuals.” [42] In contrast, the treatment plans set forth by the BOP entrench the idea that gender dysphoria is a mental illness with purely psychological solutions, perpetuating the stigma transgender people face when their identity is discussed as a mental disorder and ensuring trans people in prisons will not get the care that they need. [43] The trend of calling gender dysphoria a psychological disorder with psychological solutions is also deeply reminiscent of the language used by RFK Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services in its report on “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria.” Within this report, the HHS asserts that “exploratory therapy”/“psychotherapy” is the best way to resolve gender dysphoria. [44]
By constraining individuals from socially and medically transitioning in prisons, the BOP threatens the lives of trans people. Chinyere Ezie, a Georgia attorney against a similar policy in her state, argues, “If they implement that plan […] people will die. […] People who do not lose their lives will experience the very extreme physiological symptoms of hormone therapy withdrawal.” [45] As a result of the BOP program, thousands of individuals will become subject to a psychological practice that “has been shown to lead to an increased risk of suicidal ideation, depression, and PTSD,” while being denied the opportunity to access necessary medical care. [46]
The Nuremberg Code, coming from the Nuremberg Military Tribunal in the case U.S. v. Karl Brandt, outlines ten points that delineate permissible human experimentation in medical contexts. Some of these points involve voluntary consent, fruitful results for society, and avoiding mental suffering and injury. The practice of enforced conversion therapy for trans people in prisons violates at least 7 of the 10 points of code. According to Aleksandra Vaca of Transitics,
“[I]n subjecting a captive population to discredited, empirically harmful conversion practices—fails to meet the requirements for voluntary consent, consideration of previous results, avoidance of unnecessary suffering, risk limitation, proper safeguards against harm, freedom to withdraw, and the obligation to terminate harmful experimentation.” [47]
By determining treatment for a captive population, the present administration constructs a misleading narrative about gender-affirming care and builds a model of medical experimentation that denies care that has been deemed necessary by medical professionals for years. [48] According to NCBI, gender-affirming procedures and prescriptions frequently associated with transgender medicine are, in fact, predominantly used by cisgender patients. [49] Nevertheless, it is trans individuals and prisoners who are specially excluded from accessing gender affirming care. Exclusion of certain populations from this healthcare, and the turn towards conversion therapy in carceral settings, reveals the tendencies and ideals of the people making these decisions.
The BOP policy reflects a method of dehumanizing trans people in a targeted way by denying care, de-legitimizing identity, and inflicting unnecessary mental trauma and discomfort. By viewing these carceral practices through a lens of human experimentation, it becomes clear that the administration also justifies these practices by defining trans people in prisons as subhuman and “other” in order to make sense of abuse. This practice is framed by toxic masculine ideology, which reflects a domineering attitude towards those positioned lower in a social hierarchy that privileges heterosexual, cisgender men.
V. National and International Effects
The international implications of the rampant uptick in anti-trans state laws, federal policies, and rhetoric will be harrowing. Language that calls trans people a human security threat, a threat to our kids, or to our culture, can quickly devolve into rhetoric characterizing trans people as prime national security threats. For example, the Donald Trump Jr. quote from last year,
“I can’t name, including probably like al Qaeda and the Taliban, a group that is more violent per capita than the radical trans moment.” [50]
Political science and criminology experts across the nation confirm that there is no real evidence of a rising LGBTQ+ violent extremist or ‘trans terrorist’ movement. Even when these experts find there to be no evidence behind claims of trans violence, when the loudest and most influential leaders in office consistently make these claims, it becomes easier for segments of the American population to adopt these ideas. [51]
Donald Trump Jr., during his appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show, in which he called the “trans movement” more dangerous than al Qaeda. [52]
Another development in line with this trend comes from the Heritage Foundation, which worked to develop Project 2025. The foundation urged the FBI to recognize the threat of so-called “Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism” by adding this terminology to the list of domestic violent extremist groups. They attempt to describe a group of violent actors that does not exist in reality: “TIVE is based on the belief that violence is justified against those who do not share radical views of transgender ideology.” [53] By legitimizing the idea that trans people act as domestic terrorists, the foundation works to convince the public that violence from trans people is a genuine and relevant occurrence.
This practice didn’t stop at the suggestions of Project 2025. Last year, it was reported that the FBI had been discussing the possibility of treating its trans subjects under the heading, “Nihilistic Violent Extremists” (NVEs). This category was created earlier in the year to describe criminal conduct tied to the “furtherance of political, social, or religious goals that derive primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos.” [54] The FBI’s consideration of the NVE title for trans people is especially concerning, as it would publicly enforce a natural link between trans identity and violent action. We have also seen this link exhibited in the recently published “U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy 2026,” which furthers the association between transgender identity and terrorism when it states, “our national CT [counter-terrorism] activities will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.” [55]
In a broader global context, a doctrine that treats queer people as terrorists by the dint of their existence is especially concerning. The US exemplifies a model of anti-trans policy that combines suppression of identity with rhetoric that portrays trans people who continue to exist, express their identity, and speak out as violent extremists. Queer people and their allies are increasingly treated as such by the administration because it finds pro-LGBTQ+ pro-Trans activity and expression threatening to its own position that is grounded in a rigid conception of masculinity.
We already know that countries have followed the lead of the US on anti-trans policy. In a few examples, Albania introduced an amendment that would legally recognize only two genders, and Hungary amended its constitution to define sex as inherently binary. [56] In terms of gender affirming care, Chile released an investigative report that recommended the elimination of gender-affirming care for minors. [57] Mandates for bathroom use based on biological sex have been picked up in places like Peru, in which the congress passed its own “Bathroom Law.” [58] In one last example, Argentina has followed the US move to suppress incarcerated trans folk, establishing that prison assignment will occur according to a person’s sex at birth. [59]
The policies of the US have set harmful precedents for the government recognition of two biological sexes, restriction of gender-affirming care, and targeted oversight of trans people. What we could expect on an international scale, with the increase in violent language coming from the Trump administration and far-right state officials, is additional emboldened language abroad that paints trans people as violent threats to human and international security. This language develops a backdrop that works to legitimize the recent treatment of trans people, purportedly defending the body politic from the supposed threat posed by a nation’s trans population, a threat perceived as - or at least presented as - imminent by the leaders of the US government who embody the fragile and hegemonic ideals of toxic masculinity.
VI. Conclusion
I find that a significant driving force behind the US anti-trans doctrine, and what is likely to come on an international scale, ties back to leaders who exhibit key indicators of toxic and fragile masculinity. As our leaders work hard to perform their gender, they adopt a close-minded image of masculinity that relies on there being impermeable gender categories, categories that nonbinary, trans, and gender-expansive individuals often disrupt. Thus, this group becomes a target of suppression as our leaders seek to maintain their own masculine expression and image. The Trump administration has utilized various mechanisms as part of its anti-trans project, one of which has been the dehumanization of trans folks and depiction of them as violent, which justifies expansive anti-trans policy and contributes to the deep “othering” of queer people in the US. The work of the Trump administration to dismantle these gender groups stems from, and ultimately enforces, the set of toxic masculine ideals that have become increasingly pronounced throughout Trump’s second term.
Endnotes
[1] “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The White House. The White House, January 20, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] PHOTO CREDIT Brookings. “Tracking Regulatory Changes in the Second Trump Administration.” Brookings, January 22, 2025. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/tracking-regulatory-changes-in-the-second-trump-administration/.
[5] Villarreal, Daniel. “The US Is in Early Stages of an Anti-Trans Genocide, Experts Say - LGBTQ Nation.” LGBTQ Nation, January 7, 2026. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/01/the-us-is-in-early-stages-of-an-anti-trans-experts-say/.
[6] Cieslik, Emma. “Trans Sports Bans Rooted in Eugenics.” Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News, February 13, 2026. https://www.washingtonblade.com/2026/02/13/trans-sports-bans-rooted-in-eugenics/.
[7] *I would like to acknowledge that in describing trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive individuals, I am not seeking to impose a singular experience of gender. There is no “one way” to be trans or to be queer, which means there can be trans individuals who also express toxically masculine ideals. Nevertheless, these gender identities do tend to resist a key component of toxic masculine ideals: the strict, biologically-founded category “man” to which certain characteristics of domination, infallibility, and inflexibility, for example, can be applied.
[8] Corbett, Camille. “Understanding Violence against Transfeminine People as a Result of Inflexible Masculinities.” Proquest.com, 2026. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2820915222?%20Theses&fromopenview=true&pq-origsite=gscholar&sourcetype=Dissertations%20.
[9] McCreesh, Shawn. “Donald Trump’s Big Gay Government.” The New York Times, August 26, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/style/gay-men-trump-administration-republicans.html.
[10] Ibid.
[11] PHOTO CREDIT Nast, Condé. “How Trump Uses ‘Religious Liberty’ to Attack L.G.B.T. Rights.” The New Yorker, October 11, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-trump-uses-religious-liberty-to-attack-lgbt-rights.
[12] Adamczeski, Ryan. “Log Cabin Republicans President Bizarrely Defends Trump.” www.advocate.com, June 18, 2024. https://www.advocate.com/politics/log-cabin-republicans-president-trump.
[13] McCue, Dan. “Log Cabin GOP: Trump Best President for LGBT Community ‘Ever.’” Thewellnews.com, February 25, 2025. https://www.thewellnews.com/political-news/log-cabin-gop-trump-best-president-for-lgbt-community-ever/.
[14] Ibid.
[15] PHOTO CREDIT Reiter, Aiden, and Victoria Guida. “‘Fundamental Reset’: Scott Bessent Has a Plan to Free the Nation’s Banks.” POLITICO, January 24, 2026. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/24/scott-bessent-banks-00744468.
[16] McCreesh. “Donald Trump’s Big Gay Government.”
[17] Villarreal, “The US Is in Early Stages.”
[18] United Nations. “Definitions of Genocide and Related Crimes | United Nations.” United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, 1948. https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition.
[19] Bragman, Walker. “Experts Warn U.S. In Early Stages of Genocide against Trans Americans.” Lemkin Institute, January 5, 2026. https://www.lemkininstitute.com/single-post/experts-warn-u-s-in-early-stages-of-genocide-against-trans-americans.
[20] Lemkin Institute. “Red Flag Alerts for Genocide,” 2023. https://www.lemkininstitute.com/red-flag-alerts.
[21] Schneider, Jacob. “President Trump Ended Democrats’ ‘Transgender for Everybody’ Insanity.” The White House, March 31, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/03/president-trump-ended-democrats-transgender-for-everybody-insanity/.
[22] Lemkin Institute. “Red Flag Alert - Anti-Trans Genocide in the USA - #3,” March 11, 2026. https://www.lemkininstitute.com/red-flag-alerts/red-flag-alert---anti-trans-genocide-in-the-usa---%233.
[23] Redfield, Elana, and Ishani Chokshi. “Impact of the Executive Order Redefining Sex on Transgender, Nonbinary, and Intersex People.” Williams Institute, January 27, 2025. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/impact-eo-redefine-sex-tbi/.
[24] Trans Legislation Tracker. “2025 Anti-Trans Bills: Trans Legislation Tracker.” Trans Legislation Tracker, January 2025. https://translegislation.com/.
[25] Lemkin Institute. “Red Flag Alert.”
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Howe, Amy. “Supreme Court Sides with Trump Administration on Sex Designations on Passports.” SCOTUSblog, November 6, 2025. https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/11/supreme-court-sides-with-trump-administration-on-sex-designations-on-passports/.
[29] Factora, James. “U.S. Anti-Trans Passport Policy Prompts Three EU Countries to Issue Travel Advisories.” Them., March 24, 2025. https://www.them.us/story/us-anti-trans-passport-policy-prompts-three-eu-countries-travel-advisories.
[30] Cieslik, Emma. “Anti-Trans Visa Ruling Echoes Nazi Regime Destroying Trans Documents.” Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News, March 27, 2026. https://www.washingtonblade.com/2026/03/27/ruling-destroying-trans-documents/.
[31] ACLU of Kansas. “Understanding the New Kansas Law Targeting Transgender People - ACLU of Kansas,” March 2, 2026. https://www.aclukansas.org/publications/sb244faq/.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Pfannenstiel, Kyle. “Idaho Governor Signs Bill to Criminalize Trans People Using Bathrooms That Align with Their Identity.” Idaho Capital Sun, March 31, 2026. https://idahocapitalsun.com/2026/03/31/idaho-governor-signs-bill-to-criminalize-trans-people-using-bathrooms-that-align-with-their-identity/.
[34] Movement Advancement Project. “Bans on Transgender People Using Public Bathrooms and Facilities according to Their Gender Identity - Movement Advancement Project,” April 2, 2026. https://mapresearch.org/equality-map/bans-on-transgender-people-using-public-bathrooms-and-facilities-according-to-their-gender-identity/.
[35] PHOTO CREDIT Pfannenstiel. “Idaho Governor Signs Bill.”
[36] Lemkin Institute. “Red Flag Alert.”
[37] Ibid.
[38] Diaz, Jaclyn. “Federal Prisons Prep to Move Trans Inmates as Early as Next Week.” NPR, February 21, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/21/nx-s1-5305282/trans-inmates-federal-prison-policy-transfers.
[39] Vaca, Aleksandra. “The Trump Administration Is Testing Conversion Therapy by Medically Experimenting on Trans People in Prisons.” Substack.com. Transitics, February 23, 2026. https://transitics.substack.com/p/the-trump-administration-is-testing.
[40] Mason, Elisa. “New Policy on Management of Inmates with Gender Dysphoria and Ongoing Obligations.” Federal Bureau of Prisons, February 17, 2026. https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5260_001.pdf.
[41] Vaca. “The Trump Administration.”
[42] Cornell University. “What Does the Scholarly Research Say about the Effect of Gender Transition on Transgender Well-Being?” What We Know. Cornell University, 2018. https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/.
[43] PMHC Team. “Is Gender Dysphoria Considered a Mental Illness? - Philadelphia Mental Health Center.” Philadelphia Mental Health Center, January 27, 2025. https://pmhccares.org/is-gender-dysphoria-considered-a-mental-illness/.
[44] “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” November 19, 2025. https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-11/gender-dysphoria-report.pdf.
[45] Schwartzapfel, Beth. "Gender-Affirming Care Barred for Trans People in Federal Prisons." The Marshall Project, February 19, 2026. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2026/02/19/transgender-federal-prisons-care-ban-policy.
[46] Vaca. "The Trump Administration."
[47] Ibid.
[48] HRC Foundation. "Get the Facts on Gender-Affirming Care." Human Rights Campaign, n.d. https://www.hrc.org/resources/get-the-facts-on-gender-affirming-care.
[49] Schall, Theodore E, and Jacob D Moses. "Gender‐Affirming Care for Cisgender People." The Hastings Center 53, no. 3 (May 1, 2023): 15–24. https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.1486.
[50] Ring, Trudy. "After Charlie Kirk's Death, Trump Jr. Falsely Claims Trans People More Dangerous than Al-Qaeda." Advocate.com, September 11, 2025. https://www.advocate.com/news/trump-jr-transgender-terrorists.
[51] Abels, Grace. "There's No Evidence of Rising LGBTQ+ Violent Extremism or 'Trans Terrorism' - Poynter." Poynter, February 27, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20240507013754/https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2024/mass-shootings-caused-by-trans-lgbtq-people/.
[52] PHOTO CREDIT Latchem, Tom. "Don Jr. Dismisses Russian Collusion: 'We Couldn't Collude to Order a Cheeseburger.'" Yahoo News, October 28, 2025. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/don-jr-dismisses-russian-collusion-165134923.html.
[53] Ogles, Jacob. "Project 2025 Architects Want Transgender People and Allies Designated as Terrorists." The 19th, September 22, 2025. https://19thnews.org/2025/09/project-2025-heritage-foundation-transgender-attack/.
[54] Monteil, Abby. "FBI to Categorize Trans People as 'Nihilistic Violent Extremist' Threat Group, Report Says." Them. Them., September 19, 2025. https://www.them.us/story/trump-admin-fbi-trans-nihilistic-violent-extremists-terrorist.
[55] The White House. "UNITED STATES COUNTERTERRORISM STRATEGY 2026," May 8, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-USCT-Strategy-1.pdf.
[56] Outright International. "A Year in Trans Attacks," 2025. https://outrightinternational.org/year-trans-attacks.
[57] Ibid.
[58] Ibid.
[59] Sánchez-Garzoli, Gimena. "The State of Trans Rights across the Americas: Recognition, Contradiction, Violence, and Backsliding - WOLA." WOLA, June 23, 2025. https://www.wola.org/analysis/the-state-of-trans-rights-across-the-americas-recognition-contradiction-violence-and-backsliding/.




