On October 21st, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration is considering changing the definition of sex and gender, redefining gender as “a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.”
Several decisions by the Obama administration loosened the definition of gender to legally consider gender as an individual’s choice, rather than an innate category determined by sex assigned at birth.
The Department of Health and Human Services is working to establish a definition of sex as either male or female and unchangeable. If established, this new definition will ignore the existence of intersex people, transgender people, nonbinary people, gender nonconforming people, and everyone whose gender identity falls outside a binary sex assigned at birth.
If the Trump administration succeeds, it will erase federal recognition of the 1.4 million Americans who have recognized themselves officially as a gender other than cisgender.
After this news was released, activists in the LGBTQ+ community mobilized to protect their own and their community’s humanity, organizing a protest at the White House, holding a protest in Washington Square Park in New York City, and taking to social media with the #WontBeErased campaign.
As a nonbinary lesbian, these are several steps we as a community can take to protect our humanity and resist while taking care of ourselves.
1. Pay attention to your mental health
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, terrified, or burnt out, pay attention to it. Your mental health is first priority in this fight, and we can’t let our fear paralyze us.
2. Do what makes you feel safer, calmer, and less scared — including taking a break from politics, if necessary
Your mental health is integral to being able to survive, let alone protest, this attack on our community. Eat the food you love, read a book, drink tea, watch the movies and shows you love, take a hot bath, and make sure your body and mind know that you are worthy of safety, support, and love. Caring for yourself is an act of resistance against a government that does not care about us, and it’s necessary to ensure we have enough energy to protest with all our might.
3. Protest, protest, protest!
At Cornell, there will be a safe space for those who need it on Wednesday at the LGBT Resource Center, and the trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming community is currently organizing a protest.
4. Surround yourself with people and organizations who love you
Cornell’s LGBTQ+ organization HAVEN has a plethora of sub-organizations, including the peer support organizations TANGO (transgender, agender, nonbinary, genderqueer, and other), Lavender (an organization for Queer women and nonbinary people), and MOSAIC (a organization for LGBTQ+ people of color).
5. Know that you have a vibrant community supporting you, and the community isn’t going away!
Organizations such as the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Transgender Law Center, GLAAD, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, Human Rights Campaign, and Lambda Legal, to name a few, are working tirelessly for our rights, equality, and liberation. LGBTQ+ organizations will continue fighting until we’re fully equal, and they won’t be silenced by the Trump administration.
The world is moving towards a less rigidly gendered future in which we can be ourselves.
6. Understand our community will survive this.
We will keep resisting. We will keep fighting. We will keep demanding our rights.
The Trump administration could change aspects of the legal language with which they describe gender. They could set back our rights, they could undermine our validity, and they could attempt to define away our reality using widely recognized medical inaccuracies.
But, as we always have and always will, the LGBTQ+ community will overcome.