Trump’s 2 Gender Order: Breaking Down Executive Order 13988
Executive Order 13988 was issued on January 20, 2025, under the presidency of Donald Trump, titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.
It establishes a framework defining sex based on chromosomal and reproductive characteristics, positioning it as fixed and binary. The order does not recognize gender as separate from biological sex and asserts that sex is determined at conception rather than assigned at birth.
The order emphasizes the protection of sex-based rights and opportunities for women, defining the term through specific biological criteria.
It revokes existing regulations that supported gender identity-based policies or education, directing federal agencies to define "male" and "female" based on reproductive cell size and chromosomal patterns. This approach does not account for intersex variations or other complexities in biological diversity.
This analysis provides a breakdown of the executive order to further understand its scope and implications.
A Full Breakdown —
DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
EXECUTIVE ORDERJanuary 20, 2025
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 7301 of title 5, United States Code, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose. Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
The opening statement addresses “ideologues”, defined as people with ideologies that they wholeheartedly believe.
It states that some people have used legal measures as well as social pressures (like threatening to “cancel” someone) to permit trans women to gain access to womens spaces, like domestic abuse shelters and locker rooms. It states that people are trying to fully eliminate the concept of biological sex for the purpose of attacking women.
This section further claims that the term “sex” is being erased. It continues:
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.
This paragraph specifies that we are going down an unhealthy road which is attacking science and truth as a whole. It claims that people are replacing the word “sex” with the concept of gender identity. It states, with no specificity, that this fully invalidates what it means to be a woman, stripping women of sex-based opportunities.
Accordingly, it adds, the administration will fight for women by using clear and accurate language that recognize cisgender women as biologically female, and cisgender men as biologically male.
Sec. 2. Policy and Definitions. 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. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality, and the following definitions shall govern all Executive interpretation of and application of Federal law and administration policy:
Section 2 declares that the United States will recognize two sexes, male and female, regardless of circumstances.
(a) “Sex” shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. “Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity.”
This defines sex as “biological classification as male or female”, regardless of gender identity.
(b) “Women” or “woman” and “girls” or “girl” shall mean adult and juvenile human females, respectively.
(c) “Men” or “man” and “boys” or “boy” shall mean adult and juvenile human males, respectively.
This defines the terms women, woman, girl, and girls as synonymous with “female”. Likewise, men, man, boy, or boys are synonymous with “male”. We further detail these definitions:
(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.
This definition attempts to explain the terms in a biological sense, focusing on reproductive roles at the cellular level.
It states that biological sex is now determined when egg and sperm combine, using chromosome patterns to determine the classification of male or female.
Additionally, it specifies that reproductive cells will be a determining factor. Females are then defined as the sex that produces the larger reproductive cell, the egg (ovum), and males are the sex that produces the smaller reproductive cell, the sperm.
(f) “Gender ideology” replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true. Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.
This section states that gender is, at present, currently being used as a replacement term for “sex”. It further states that gender identity, which is self-assessed and ever-changing, is requiring institutions and businesses to acknowledge gender identities beyond the previously defined definitions of male and female.
(g) “Gender identity” reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.
Gender identity is defined as internal, subjective, infinate, ever-changing, and not to be used for identification. It cannot be used synonymously with the term “sex” as defined in this order.
Sec. 3. Recognizing Women Are Biologically Distinct From Men. (a) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall provide to the U.S. Government, external partners, and the public clear guidance expanding on the sex-based definitions set forth in this order.
Within 30 days, by February 19th 2025, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will expand on these ideas.
(b) Each agency and all Federal employees shall enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes. Each agency should therefore give the terms “sex”, “male”, “female”, “men”, “women”, “boys” and “girls” the meanings set forth in section 2 of this order when interpreting or applying statutes, regulations, or guidance and in all other official agency business, documents, and communications.
Federal agencies will be enforcing laws that govern sex-based rights, like Title XI (an order protecting women in educational settings) to only acknowledge sex as defined in this order.
(c) When administering or enforcing sex-based distinctions, every agency and all Federal employees acting in an official capacity on behalf of their agency shall use the term “sex” and not “gender” in all applicable Federal policies and documents.
This section orders that the term “gender” not be used in any sort of official capacity, requiring all government agents to use the term “sex” as defined in this order.
(d) The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, shall implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex, as defined under section 2 of this order; and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall ensure that applicable personnel records accurately report Federal employees’ sex, as defined by section 2 of this order.
This section declares that passports, IDs, and Driver’s Licenses reflect the individuals sex as defined in this order.
(e) Agencies shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications or other messages. Agency forms that require an individual’s sex shall list male or female, and shall not request gender identity. Agencies shall take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology.
All government agencies will have any statements, policies, regulations, forms, and messages (both internally and externally) that refer to gender identity removed, and future communications in reference to gender or gender identity are forbidden. It states a definitive end to the “federal funding of gender ideology”.
(f) The prior Administration argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which addressed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, requires gender identity-based access to single-sex spaces under, for example, Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act. This position is legally untenable and has harmed women. The Attorney General shall therefore immediately issue guidance to agencies to correct the misapplication of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) to sex-based distinctions in agency activities. In addition, the Attorney General shall issue guidance and assist agencies in protecting sex-based distinctions, which are explicitly permitted under Constitutional and statutory precedent.
This passage rejects the current interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County, a case that ruled that discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination under Title VII (a legal protection regarding employment opportunities).
It argues that the prior Administration interpreted the Bostock decision too broadly, offering protections at educational institutions based on gender identity rather than sex as defined in this order.
The current Administration, in this passage, rejects that interpretation as a "misapplication" of the Supreme Court ruling. It states that the Attorney General will provide further guidance on correctly applying the ruling based on sex as defined in this order.
(g) Federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology. Each agency shall assess grant conditions and grantee preferences and ensure grant funds do not promote gender ideology.
Federal grants will be thoroughly assessed in the future to ensure that information about gender and gender identity is completely cut off from federal funding.
Sec. 4. Privacy in Intimate Spaces. (a) The Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers, including through amendment, as necessary, of Part 115.41 of title 28, Code of Federal Regulations and interpretation guidance regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Trans women will now be housed in men’s prisons/detention center.
(b) The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall prepare and submit for notice and comment rulemaking a policy to rescind the final rule entitled “Equal Access in Accordance with an Individual’s Gender Identity in Community Planning and Development Programs” of September 21, 2016, 81 FR 64763, and shall submit for public comment a policy protecting women seeking single-sex rape shelters.
The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development will go through a public rulemaking process to replace a previously existing rule called “Equal Access in Accordance with an Individual’s Gender Identity in Community Planning and Development Programs” with a new rule, which would specify that only cisgendered women have access to shelters designed for survivors of sexual violence.
(c) The Attorney General shall ensure that the Bureau of Prisons revises its policies concerning medical care to be consistent with this order, and shall ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.
The Attorney General will oversee a prison reform which bans all gender-affirming care, such as hormone replacements.
(d) Agencies shall effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.
Agencies will ensure that these rules are followed.
Sec. 5. Protecting Rights. The Attorney General shall issue guidance to ensure the freedom to express the binary nature of sex and the right to single-sex spaces in workplaces and federally funded entities covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In accordance with that guidance, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Labor, the General Counsel and Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and each other agency head with enforcement responsibilities under the Civil Rights Act shall prioritize investigations and litigation to enforce the rights and freedoms identified.
The Attorney General will ensure that men and women, as defined in this order, are allowed to live freely as men and women respectively, as defined by this order. They will prioritize investigations against trans rights.
Sec. 6. Bill Text. Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs shall present to the President proposed bill text to codify the definitions in this order.
Within 30 days, by February 19th 2025 , the Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs is tasked with drafting a document that lays out how all of this would be made into law if passed by Congress.
Sec. 7. Agency Implementation and Reporting. (a) Within 120 days of the date of this order, each agency head shall submit an update on implementation of this order to the President, through the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. That update shall address:
(i) changes to agency documents, including regulations, guidance, forms, and communications, made to comply with this order; and
(ii) agency-imposed requirements on federally funded entities, including contractors, to achieve the policy of this order.
Each agency head is required to implement this executive order within 120 days, and provide documentation that includes all of the specific changes implemented.
(b) The requirements of this order supersede conflicting provisions in any previous Executive Orders or Presidential Memoranda, including but not limited to Executive Orders 13988 of January 20, 2021, 14004 of January 25, 2021, 14020 and 14021 of March 8, 2021, and 14075 of June 15, 2022. These Executive Orders are hereby rescinded, and the White House Gender Policy Council established by Executive Order 14020 is dissolved.
This executive order overrides any existing orders to the federal government. It dissolves any prior existing gender discrimination policies or orders.
(c) Each agency head shall promptly rescind all guidance documents inconsistent with the requirements of this order or the Attorney General’s guidance issued pursuant to this order, or rescind such parts of such documents that are inconsistent in such manner. Such documents include, but are not limited to:
(i) “The White House Toolkit on Transgender Equality”;
(ii) the Department of Education’s guidance documents including:
(A) “2024 Title IX Regulations: Pointers for Implementation” (July 2024);
(B) “U.S. Department of Education Toolkit: Creating Inclusive and Nondiscriminatory School Environments for LGBTQI+ Students”;
(C) “U.S. Department of Education Supporting LGBTQI+ Youth and Families in School” (June 21, 2023);
(D) “Departamento de Educación de EE.UU. Apoyar a los jóvenes y familias LGBTQI+ en la escuela” (June 21, 2023);
(E) “Supporting Intersex Students: A Resource for Students, Families, and Educators” (October 2021);
(F) “Supporting Transgender Youth in School” (June 2021);
(G) “Letter to Educators on Title IX’s 49th Anniversary” (June 23, 2021);
(H) “Confronting Anti-LGBTQI+ Harassment in Schools: A Resource for Students and Families” (June 2021);
(I) “Enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 With Respect to Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Light of Bostock v. Clayton County” (June 22, 2021);
(J) “Education in a Pandemic: The Disparate Impacts of COVID-19 on America’s Students” (June 9, 2021); and
(K) “Back-to-School Message for Transgender Students from the U.S. Depts of Justice, Education, and HHS” (Aug. 17, 2021);
(iii) the Attorney General’s Memorandum of March 26, 2021 entitled “Application of Bostock v. Clayton County to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972″; and
(iv) the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace” (April 29, 2024).
This is the formal banning of any existing materials previously approved by the Department of Education that review LGBTQIA+ inclusivity or gender identity, as well as information on Title IX. To keep any of these materials in place, the agency will have to remove anything related to gender, referring only to sex as defined in this order.
Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
This is a catch-all section which states that nothing in this order will affect authority granted by law. This executive order is not allowed to break existing laws, or change the function of the Director of Office Management and Budget.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
This clarifies that the executive order must follow existing laws and can only be implemented if Congress has provided the necessary funding.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This states that the executive order does not create any legal rights or benefits for individuals or groups.
(d) If any provision of this order, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this order and the application of its provisions to any other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.
If part of the executive order is found to be invalid (e.g., ruled unconstitutional or illegal in court), the rest of the order remains in effect.
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