Recently, the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, was outed for documents containing a plan to revoke Obama’s terminology for specifying gender, and instead, eliminate rights to identify as the gender that does not correspond with your sex. As a student in the transgender umbrella, these potential changes are phenonomely damaging. And, here’s why.

Anatomy and gender are not always correlated. As Doctor Joshua Safer, executive director of Mount Sinai Hospital Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery put it, “Sex of individuals is not correlated always with their genitals at birth, or with their chromosomes”(Safer 2018). Some people in the transgender umbrella live their lives with a fervent knowledge that their gender does not match their anatomical sex organs, while others live feeling comfortable, at home, in their bodies, with a matching gender identity. This doesn’t mean that a person in the transgender umbrella is ‘ill’, or ‘has something wrong with them’, it simply means that they were always female or male, but their bodies don’t match their identity.

 Luckily, right now in the United States, individuals who are transgender are able to change from the name and gender on their birth certificate to the name and gender that reflects their identity. After the age of 15, many states allow hormone replacement therapy, (HRT) to anyone under the transgender umbrella- some services for free. Surgeons all across the US are performing gender reassignment surgeries(GRS), and although certainly not an easy task, it certainly is doable. However, this might change. Donald Trump’s new proposal would require citizens to be identified only by their gender at birth, determined by their genitalia. It would determine only two genders; male, and female, unchangeable, and fixed. This change would require all legal documentation of an individual to correlate to said person’s anatomy. Trump hasn’t stated whether this would discontinue HRT or gender reassignment surgery; either way, many issues occur. If HRT and GRS are continued, then the person will not appear as the gender stated on their documentation. For example, if a woman has a passport that affirms her gender as ‘male’, due to the gender findings as a infant, she may have difficulty proving that, in fact, it is her identity. Thus, she will not be able to completely, fully live her life as a woman due to the constant prodding about the identity on documentation. Thus, people who happen to be transgender will experience necessary discrimination of invasive screenings, questionings, and other identification issues. However, what if Trump finds a way to ban HRT and GRS? Well, then, people will lack the access to treatment for gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria occurs in many people in the transgender umbrella, myself included. Personally, as a genderfluid (queer) individual, when my gender identity doesn’t match my body, I feel uncomfortable, disgusting, in my body. Luckily for me, it’s temporary, as my gender fluixates. However, for female to male, or male to female transgender people, the symptoms of gender dysphoria never end- until they can truly feel comfortable and confident in their bodies. Without HRT and GRS, suicide rates will skyrocket, and many trans identifying people will struggle.

So, on behalf of all my fellow transgender teenagers, I hereby say, we will NOT be erased. Our gender is valid, and our lives are important. Rise up and protect the transgender community from the foreseen discrimination. If you can, vote. If not, well, make a scene. Let us be seen. As a wise person once said, ‘Respect our existence, or expect resistance’. And to our politicians, remember, we will never be erased.