Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin tweeted his support for the rights of transgender people on Tuesday, saying, “Transgender people are not a political stance, agenda, or conspiracy.”
Woodfin added, “They are human beings and they deserve equal protection under the law.”
This comes after The New York Times reported over the weekend that the Trump administration is considering defining gender strictly using biology, making gender legally mean the same thing as sex. Gender would be “determined by genitalia at birth,” according to the report.
The NYT wrote that “the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. “
A Department of Health and Human Services draft memo obtained by the publication says that the Trump administration is working towards establishing a legal definition of gender under Title IX “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.”
The memo adds, “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth. The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
Hysteria has broken out after the reporting of the memo.
Catherine Lhamon, who worked in President Obama’s Department of Education, said that a science-based definition of gender “quite simply negates the humanity of people.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer even called the framework definition “discrimination.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a tweet of his own, claimed that the Trump “administration wants to take away the rights of trans and gender non-binary New Yorkers. In our city, we believe that people tell their government who they are – not the other way around.”
Singer Lady Gaga tweeted, “The government may be living in an alternate universe, but we as a society & culture know who we are and know our truth and must stick together and raise our voices so we can educate them about gender identities.”
Then there was the assertion by Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA), who said in a tweet, “This nation’s darkest days have always come when our government deemed civil rights conditional. [Donald Trump’s] ongoing assault on transgender Americans betrays our most fundamental responsibility to treat and see each other as human.”
Kennedy added that the Trump Administration “continues to cower to the forces of hatred and bigotry.”
The New York Times specifically noted that after their article was published online, “transgender people took to social media to post photographs of themselves with the hashtag #WontBeErased.”
Transgender people are not a political stance, agenda, or conspiracy. They are human beings and they deserve equal protection under the law. #WontBeErased #TransRightsAreHumanRights
— Randall Woodfin (@randallwoodfin) October 23, 2018
Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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