Where do we begin?
Immediately following his inauguration, President Trump began to sign and discuss a multitude of executive orders, abiding by the many legislative promises made during his campaign. These orders stretch the limits of federal reach and presidential power, but more than just making headlines, how do they affect you as an American?
DEI and Gender Identity
The most pressing issues for women, minorities, and other marginalized groups are the two orders that went into place on day one. The first, his Order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing”, guts diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as well as “environmental justice” positions from the federal government, which resulted in the termination of several federal jobs.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), a method of providing equity on nearly all levels of sociocultural life, has long been weaponized as discriminatory against cisgender, heterosexual, white males, even though it has opened the door for women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, and people with disabilities to not be seen based on their identity but rather on their merits. By gutting this on a federal level, companies like NASA, Target, and more have also begun to repeal their DEI hiring initiatives. It is still unknown how school programs and scholarships will be affected by this.
Similarly, Trump’s Order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” explicitly targets transgender individuals, federally recognizing “two sexes, male and female” and forcing the federal government to refer to individuals by their sex rather than their gender identity. This order could severely impact trans women who are incarcerated or traveling. For example, under the order, trans women will now be housed in cells that align with their biological sex rather than what they identify as, leaving them more open to assault and violence. Trans people will now have their assigned sex at birth on passports rather than their preferred identity.
Healthcare
Fueling the abortion rights fire is Trump’s Order “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment,” which prohibits the use of federal dollars for healthcare services like abortions. The Hyde Amendment specifically applies to programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, barring insurers from using those funds to seek abortion care unless in cases of rape, incest, or danger to life.
The Hyde Amendment has long been criticized as disproportionately affecting low-income women and women of color, leading to the recently passed Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Act, which aimed to counter it by reducing the economic barriers women would have to face on abortion coverage. While it currently only affects those under federal programs, many political analysts fear the potential future orders and initiatives that can sprout from this order, including national bans on abortion, birth control, and other aspects of women’s healthcare.
While not executed through direct orders, Trump and his administration have made decisions that further bolster anti-abortion acts. The first of these is a plan to “scale back” the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which made it illegal to “harm, threaten or interfere with a person obtaining or providing reproductive health services, or to damage a facility where those services are provided.” Compounded with this is the attendance of both President Trump and Vice President J.D Vance at a March for Life rally, where the latter claimed “Our country faces the return of the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes.”
Lastly, an Order “Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization” rescinds the United States membership as part of the WHO, a leading United Nations organization that provides research and resources for global health issues. As a reminder, the WHO provided the U.S. with many resources such as vaccine research aid and materials during the COVID-19 outbreak, despite Trump’s belief against the existence of a pandemic. In return, the U.S. accounts “for nearly 15 percent of its planned budget,” leaving the already tightly budgeted organization at risk of taking cost-cutting measures. In leaving the WHO, Trump has left the U.S. at risk of misinformation on emerging outbreaks, reemerging diseases, and bolstering anti-vaccination dogma. Interestingly enough, for a candidate dedicated to boosting the U.S. economy, by leaving the WHO, American pharmaceutical companies, health tech corporations, and research tanks might see an economic downturn.
Federal Spending
On Jan. 27, a week after Trump’s inauguration, a memo was published revealing plans from the Trump Administration to temporarily pause federal spending, including federal loans, grants, and other methods of spending such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and more. Immediately following this memo, widespread confusion and legal challenges sparked, with many fearing their food stamps, Pell Grants, and Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) loans would be pulled out from under them.
As of the writing of this article, the memo has since been rescinded and federal spending programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and more have been untouched. However, the statement following the rescinding of the memo promises that the administration will “focus on enforcing the President’s orders on controlling federal spending.”
What’s Next?
In just the first week of his presidency, Trump has shown us a glimpse of what we can expect for the next four years. In the aftermath, many departments and courts have launched lawsuits against the President, aiming to repeal these executive orders on the basis that they violate many different aspects of constitutional law, especially the 14th Amendment’s citizenship and equal protection clauses. It may be too soon to tell what exactly the 47th presidential term has in store for women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people, but the first week of executive orders has already proved enough to cause alarm.