AWN Network Opposes Trump’s Attempt to Take Away Transgender People’s Civil and Human Rights

Last week, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is considering a proposal to roll back protections for transgender people across multiple federal agencies. These protections originally came from the Obama White House. Trump’s new proposal will narrow the definition of gender as follows: “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.”

If that proposal goes forward, these setbacks will lessen protections for transgender people in all walks of life, including the workplace, schools, military, and healthcare. This move makes members of this population vulnerable to further political disenfranchisement as well as increased social and physical violence.

Autistic Women & Nonbinary (AWN) Network opposes all attempts to overturn the protections for transgender people that are currently in place. As an organization with a majority of our community members, leaders and volunteers who are part of the LGBTQ community, many of whom are specifically transgender, nonbinary, or agender, this move by the Trump administration is deeply personal. AWN Network agrees with Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who characterized these proposed plans by the Trump cabinet as an eleventh-hour attempt to engage the most hateful parts of his base before the November midterm elections.

As an organization that develops its activism goals alongside other marginalized communities, AWN Network positions itself in dedicated solidarity alongside the transgender community to condemn these attacks.

AWN Network echoes the sentiments in the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s (ASAN) statement condemning Trump’s attack, when they described the Autistic and transgender communities as interconnected. Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network has forged strong bonds with other marginalized communities within and outside our own, and we will do everything in our power to oppose attempts to turn back the clock on transgender people’s civil and human rights.