In his first month in office, US President Donald Trump has issued a series of sweeping executive orders targeting transgender rights. Thus far, these aim to rigidly define “sex” in federal law, exclude transgender people from military service, ban gender-affirming healthcare for people under the age of 19, restrict support for transgender students in schools, and prohibit transgender women and girls from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity. The orders not only seek to roll back important rights, but functionally aim to erase any recognition of transgender people at the federal level.

Worryingly, these orders build on political terrain that is now exceedingly hostile to transgender rights. State legislatures have enacted dozens of anti-transgender laws, Congress is considering a range of bills that could codify anti-transgender discrimination at the federal level, and the Supreme Court is set to decide a pivotal case determining how anti-transgender discrimination should be treated under the US Constitution.

In this post, I briefly examine the landscape for transgender rights in the United States, analyze what President Trump’s executive orders on transgender rights aim to do, and then discuss the stakes of United States v. Skrmetti, the pending Supreme Court case that will likely set out the framework that federal courts will use in adjudicating transgender rights cases under the Trump administration and beyond. I argue that the recent executive orders underscore the importance of the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Skrmetti, and the urgent need to reinforce foundational equal protection principles and require lawmakers to meaningfully justify the restrictions they wish to impose on transgender rights.