Staff writer Sam McManus examines a newly issued executive order from the Trump administration, which may have inadvertently redefined the entire U.S. population as female.
One of Donald Trump’s new executive orders seems to have made an enormous scientific blunder. As part of an attempt to reword the legal definition of sex, Trump’s new administration may have declared everyone in the United States as female.
The President’s brazen sharpie inked an order entitled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”, as his administration seeks to back its resistance to transgenderism through the deployment of ‘scientific truths’.
Trump had promised the changes in his inaugural address, proclaiming “it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders — male and female”, much to the thunderous applause of supporters crammed into the Rotunda building.
The executive order itself declares sex (not gender) as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female”. It has established the definition of “female” as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell”. It defines “male” as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.”
The order rather ironically states that these definitions are a combatant to “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex”. However, the rather clunky issue has failed to read up on the science.
Quite crucially to this issue, all foetuses develop in the same manner following conception, until around 6 weeks after conception. At this stage, embryos with an XY genotype will begin developing male traits linked to the Y chromosome. It takes weeks of development before the organs for pelvic anatomy start to be established. If a Y chromosome does not do this, the foetus will continue to develop female genitalia.
So, at the point of conception, the default configuration of the human foetus is female. If sex is assigned at this stage, every single American, including the President himself, would thus be classified as a female. Plus, Trump’s order also overlooks the reported 5.6 million intersex citizens living in the US, who may not be easily allotted into these very binary definitions.
Deleware Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress told The Independent: “It appears that he just declared everyone a woman from conception based on the language of the executive order”, with a social media user mocking how “Trump just abolished all men”.
On their first day back in office, Trump’s team, demonstrating their customary mastery of detail, has managed to concoct a policy which has somehow undermined their own steadfast belief in binary genders. Trump has finally broken the ultimate glass ceiling, with one poorly drafted order making him America’s first female president. Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton must be watching on in envy.
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