The President Joe Biden He began his tenure in the White House with a sweeping promise to protect against Republican policies that painted transgender Americans as a threat to children and wanted them out of public life.
“Your president has your back,” Biden assured trans people in his first State of the Union address in 2021, repeating a version of that statement in subsequent speeches.
But with the president Donald Trump days after taking office accumulating transgender people During his campaign, some worried that Biden didn’t do enough to protect himself from what was to come.
The president-elect has declared that “it will be the official policy of the government of the United States that there are only two genders: male and female”, and he has pledged to sign a number of executive orders aimed at trans people at the beginning of his presidency.
While Biden and Democrats are grappling with how to handle transgender policy, the GOP used Democratic support to regain control of the White House and Congress for the trans community. Vice President Kamala Harris He rarely mentioned transgender people in his campaign, but Trump’s campaign cited previous Harris statements to consistently argue to swing voters that he was focused on trans issues rather than the economy.
Democrats won’t soon forget the pitfall of a Trump ad that went viral since Election Day: “Kamala is for them/them; President Trump is for you.”
In his last full month in office, Biden rejected plans that were pending signed a bill that includes protections for transgender student-athletes and removing language on transgender medical treatment for children of service members.
His actions follow a common strategy where the outgoing administration crosses policies or abandons unfinished rules to prevent the incoming president from reshaping them to advance his agenda more quickly. But some trans people question why Biden left behind plans that could have been better protected from Trump’s policies.
“In some ways, the Biden administration has delivered on its promise to support trans people, but not nearly as much as it could have, nor is it comparable to the current attack on trans people,” Imara Jones, a transgender woman. He created the podcast “The Anti-Trans Hate Machine,” he told The Associated Press.
Biden appointed trans people to influential positions in his administration, he noted. It overturned a Trump-era ban that allowed trans people serving in the military and US citizens who don’t identify as male or female to select an “X” as their gender marker on their passports.
“Under President Biden’s leadership, we have addressed historic injustices and advanced equality for the community, but there is more work to be done, and we look forward to continuing the work after he leaves office,” said White House spokeswoman Kelly Scully.
The Justice Department under Biden also challenged state laws Tennessee and Alabama that is forbidden gender-affirming medical care for trans youth, and presented expressions of interest in other cases.
“But big gaps opened up and remain,” Jones said. “The administration failed to enforce Title IX, failed to advocate for trans health care, and failed to adequately address trans violence. The list goes on. Even now, measures could be put in place to help the administration protect the trans community, at least temporarily.”
Some LGBTQ+ advocates have accused Biden of neglecting the transgender community after signing the annual law. defense project despite opposing a provision preventing the military’s health program from covering certain medical treatments for transgender children in military families.
The nation’s largest organization of LGBTQ+ service members and veterans said Biden’s decision to sign the bill “directly flies in the face of claims that his administration is the most pro-LGBTQ+ in American history.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said this is the first federal law targeting LGBTQ+ people since the 1990s, when Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed the law, a decision later he said he regretted it.
The restriction comes as at least 26 states have passed laws banning or limiting sex-affirming medical care for transgender minors, though most have faced lawsuits. Federal judges have struck down the bans Arkansas and Florida is unconstitutional, but a federal appeals court has made it so The Florida ruling was stayed. A judge’s order is in place temporarily blocking enforcement of the ban Montana.
Twenty-five states have laws on the books except trans women and girls from competing in certain women’s sports competitions. Judges have temporarily blocked enforcement of the bans Arizona, Idaho and Utah.
In 2023 when Biden ran the now-abandoned the proposal banning outright bans on transgender student-athletes, they were advocates for trans rights unsatisfiedsaying it left room for schools to prevent some athletes from playing on teams that match their gender identity.
Sports proposal, a broader rule extended civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ students under Title IXthen it was delayed several times.
Biden’s delays were huge seen as a political maneuver as a Republican in an election year he raised a cry about trans athletes in girls’ sports. Had the rule been finalized, it likely would have faced conservative legal challenges similar to those that prevented the broader Title IX policy from taking effect in dozens of states.
