UMass Stonewall Center head: Trump actions targeting trans students and others ‘very difficult’

The new Trump administration has issued multiple executive orders and policy changes targeting what it considers “gender ideology extremism.” A University of Massachusetts Amherst researcher says the actions are having "devastating" effects on marginalized groups

For years, Dr. Genny Beemyn has written and taught extensively on the trans experience. They’re also the director of UMass Amherst’s Stonewall Center, a campus facility devoted to supporting and providing resources for the LGBTQIA community – a community that has found itself the target of numerous executive orders issued by President Trump.

“It's been very difficult,” Beemyn told WAMC. “None of what has happened, in terms of what I call the persecution of trans and non-binary people, particularly trans and non-binary youth, is surprising … much of what he has done, in terms of executive orders, was what I and others expected, but the fact that it wasn't surprising still does not mean that it wasn't really devastating.”

Amid a whirlwind of executive actions, several orders and edicts touching on gender identity and particularly trans student athletes have been filed at the White House. Last week in particular, the president signed an executive order entitled “Keeping Men Out of Sports."

Among other directives, the order empowers the U.S. Department of Education to go after schools that allow trans athletes to compete in sports that correspond to their identity, making it a policy to rescind all funds from educational programs that, in the White House’s view, deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which “results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

A day later, the DoE announced the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, or MIAA, would be investigated for alleged Title IX violations. Per the DoE, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities.

“It's trying to send a chilling message - that if you do anything to support trans people, we're going to come after you,” Beemyn said of the actions and others.

Also a day later, the NCAA, helmed by former Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, announced its apparent compliance with the order.

Last week, the collegiate sports authority announced its Board of Governors approved an update to its trans student-athlete participation policy, limiting competition in women’s sports to “student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”

It’s a move Beemyn calls disappointing, adding that the NCAA appeared to act without much pressure being applied and that the association wasn’t necessarily required to take action.

The change also appeared to fly in the face of previous statements issued by Baker on the matter.

“He, himself, admitted that, as far as he can tell, and as far as I have also been able to ascertain, that there are less than ten trans women competing nationwide in the NCAA,” the director said. “That's a minuscule number - out of at least a half-million athletes, that we're talking about, such a small number of people and [with] all the hoopla, you would think that trans women are just taking over sports and winning all these competitions and dominating their sport when there's just a handful that are even participating, let alone doing well.”

WAMC has reached out to the NCAA for comment. The association was also among the sports authorities to receive a request from the DoE this week to “restore to female athletes the records, titles, awards, and recognitions misappropriated by biological males competing in female categories.”

Other actions from the White House include the executive order entitled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government," which stakes the claim that “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.” The order appeared to call for limits on how the government recognizes a person, including only recognizing the male and female sexes.

That’s in addition to having agencies “take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology,” effectively threatening federally-funded groups and programs that “promote or reflect gender identity.”

Beemyn says the flurry of executive orders and policy changes appear designed to cause chaos, and make matters difficult for people to know what is being limited and when – not unlike policies surrounding immigration.

Adding the last Trump administration was not exactly trans-friendly either, and that some recent actions were choreographed to some extent on the campaign trail, Beemyn says the moves still come as a “total shock” – and that Trump's actions are especially outsized compared to the size of the trans and non-binary community.

“It depends on who you ask, but, certainly, a few percent of the population identifies as trans or non-binary,” they said. “You would think from all the targeting that, somehow we were this huge force and that that we were the ones who tried to overthrow the government on Jan. 6, as opposed to his supporters - it's just really out of proportion as an issue.”

For now, Beemyn says, their research and the Stonewall Center’s mission continues. Concerns linger over future access to things like gender affirmative care, but at least in the state of Massachusetts, the center’s director says the Commonwealth and campus continues to offer up support to students and beyond.

In addition to calling on the public to step up and provide support for trans and non-binary people as matters continue, Beemyn adds that for students feeling targeted by recent actions in Washington and other states – there’s still support to be found out there.

“It is hard to think about the fact that … the government of the country that you live in, and perhaps the leadership of the state you live in, wants you to disappear and is making your life so difficult, but recognize that there are a whole bunch of people out there who are supportive, who want to provide support to folks in their place, so you can go where you can get support,” the Stonewall Center director said. “And so, recognize that it's bleak, but it's not hopeless.”