Executive Order on Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation
And a question about recent executive orders more generally
January 29, 2025
On January 28, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.
Like the previous Executive Order on Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, it is necessarily limited due to the limited nature of federal executive authority. I recently wrote about the previous order here and in The Liberal Patriot.
Like many others, I am celebrating that it is now the policy of the United States “that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
I am happy to see the order cover 18-year-olds (though I would support an order that covers people up to 25-years-old as well). I am happy to see the order require agencies to “rescind or amend all policies that rely on WPATH guidance, including WPATH’s ‘Standards of Care Version 8.’” Those standards include no age limits on the administration of puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones, and so-called “gender affirming surgeries.”
And I love the accurate language contained in the order. As far as I can tell, the order is consistent with Article 9 of the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, which reaffirms the need for the protection of the rights of children. It is high time the barbaric practice of sterilizing and otherwise harming children comes to an end.
I appreciate a recent piece on the order by UK commentator Andrew Doyle titled, “The chemical and surgical mutilation of children is almost over.” In my view, Andrew strikes the right balance between celebrating the order and remaining mindful of its limitations and the fact that there’s more work to do. Because I am not an expert on the administration of the US healthcare system, I don’t want to opine beyond that.
Someone posted a very interesting comment on my piece in The Liberal Patriot about the order Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government possibly being “buried.” I would like to hear from paid subscribers about what they think about that question.
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