The Trump administration has launched a sweeping new offensive against transgender rights, employing federal regulation and legislative threats in what critics describe as an attempt to legislate trans and non-binary people out of public existence.
A Two-Pronged Assault on Bodily Autonomy
This week witnessed a significant escalation in federal policy targeting the transgender community. On Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) dispatched warning letters to a dozen businesses selling products like chest binders, packing underwear, and silicone breast forms. Companies such as ShapeShifter Apparel, GenderBender LLC, and TomboyX were accused of failing to register these items as medical devices, threatening them with potential seizure or injunction.
Simultaneously, on Thursday, Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr unveiled a plan to block medical treatments for transgender youth, deliberately reframing "gender-affirming care" as "sex-rejecting procedures." His proposal would strip federal funding, including Medicaid, from hospitals providing such care to minors, claiming it "robs children of their futures"—a direct contradiction to medical consensus which views these treatments as vital suicide prevention measures.
The Broader Political Crusade
These actions are not isolated incidents but part of a coordinated campaign initiated on President Trump's first day in office. The executive order titled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" mandated that the government recognise only two immutable sexes, male and female, for official documents like passports.
Congress is now collaborating with this agenda. The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that would make providing transgender healthcare a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. This legislative push mirrors the administration's approach, framing the existence and medical care of transgender people as issues to be regulated and criminalised out of existence.
Hypocrisy and Human Cost
The FDA's crackdown carries a stark irony. The agency operates under the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Kennedy, a man who has promoted debunked autism "cures" like chelation—a treatment for heavy-metal poisoning that killed a child this year. Kennedy has also appointed the discredited David Geier to head autism and vaccine research, and named Mehmet Oz, known for promoting quack weight-loss remedies, to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
As journalist Judith Levine argues, the president's "definition of acceptable humanity is limited," a vision that seems to exclude anyone whose gender identity diverges from their birth certificate. The administration's strategy appears to be one of deliberate suffering: making life so legally perilous and medically inaccessible that transgender people are forced underground.
However, history shows that criminalisation does not erase need. Just as people seek abortions where they are illegal, transgender individuals will continue to seek hormones, surgery, and affirming products. The result of these policies will not be eradication but a dangerous shift to black markets and unlicensed providers, risking illness, impairment, and death. Trans people will still bind, tuck, and pack—but at a higher cost, both financial and personal.
Transgender and non-binary people have always existed and will continue to exist. The administration's actions acknowledge it cannot eliminate them. Instead, it is deploying every tool of the state to make their lives, and their pursuit of the fundamental human right to bodily autonomy, as difficult and dangerous as possible.
