In one of his first presidential actions, President Trump signed an executive order reaffirming that there are only two genders — male and female — while also affirming that life and personhood begin at conception.
The declaration, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” firmly establishes that there are only two biological sexes. As a result of the order, federal agencies are now to refer to a person’s “sex” rather than “gender,” and remove any form of communication that would “promote gender ideology.”
The order begins:
Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being.
As the order goes on to define ‘male’ and ‘female,’ the language clearly states that personhood starts at conception.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/
The order states (emphases added), “‘Female’ means a person belonging, at conception to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell” and “‘Male’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.” As written, this could have big implications for those fighting for the protection of preborn children from abortion, as well as those created via IVF.
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The 14th Amendment states that no person shall be deprived of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law,” and all persons deserve “the equal protection of the law.” The subject of personhood has long been wrestled with legally, especially in IVF cases in which parents have had to fight for the dignity of their children being stored as frozen embryos.
In other instances, those fighting against abortion have tried to get the courts to recognize that preborn children are persons. However, Trump himself has vocalized support for IVF, calling the Republican party “the party of IVF.” That support would seemingly be at odds with the order.
BREAKING: President Trump’s executive order that proclaims that there are only TWO GENDERS also recognizes that human life BEGINS AT CONCEPTION! pic.twitter.com/w9tRjnOpM1
— Kristan Hawkins (@KristanHawkins) January 21, 2025
Though most of the media hasn’t picked up on the choice of language, some abortion advocates have noticed the wording and are on edge.
Abortion guru Jessica Valenti has sounded the alarm on X, saying, “The Trump administration snuck fetal personhood into their anti-trans executive order.”
Writing for The New Republic, Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling opines that the executive order gives preborn human beings “dangerous rights.”
Whether the language was intentional or not, there’s no denying what it clearly states: each preborn child is a unique person with his or her own DNA from the very moment of fertilization.
Tell President Trump, RFK, Jr., Elon, and Vivek:
Stop killing America’s future. Defund Planned Parenthood NOW!
