On Wednesday, less than a week after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the agency rolled out a webpage promoting the Trump administration’s anti-trans executive orders and issued a public guidance asserting that a person’s sex is “unchangeable.”

The webpage for HHS’s Office on Women’s Health highlights President Donald Trump’s executive actions defining sex in a manner that excludes transgender, nonbinary, and intersex populations, prohibiting trans women and girls from participating in competitive sports, and restricting people younger than 19 from accessing medically necessary gender affirming healthcare interventions.

“This administration is bringing back common sense and restoring biological truth to the federal government,” Kennedy said in a statement announcing the guidance and the new HHS page. “The prior administration’s policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over.”

The webpage is headlined by a video featuring Riley Gaines, the former NCAA swimmer-turned-right-wing, anti-trans activist. “The executive order keeping men out of women’s sports ensures the next generation of girls has the fair opportunity to compete with the safety, privacy, and equal opportunity they’re entitled to,” she said in the clip.

The Trump-Vance administration’s narrow definition of sex and position that gender affirming care for minors constitutes “child abuse” is disputed not just by the health officials serving under the Biden-Harris administration, but also by the mainstream scientific and medical community.

Multiple federal judges have also weighed in. During a hearing on Tuesday challenging Trump’s efforts to bar trans people from serving in the military, Judge Ana Reyes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the White House’s assertion that gender is an immutable trait determined only by birth sex was not “biologically correct.”

“There are anywhere near 30 intersex examples,” she said. “Anyone who doesn’t have XX or XY chromosomes is not just male or female, they’re intersex.”

Additionally, last week, two federal judges issued orders temporarily blocking the enforcement of Trump’s executive order restricting medical interventions for transgender youth.

An email sent to employees at the U.S. Department of Education on Friday explains that “programs, contracts, policies, outward-facing media, regulations, and internal practices” will be reviewed and cut in cases where they “fail to affirm the reality of biological sex.”

The move, which is of a piece with President Donald Trump’s executive orders restricting transgender rights, jeopardizes the future of initiatives at the agency like mental health services and support for students experiencing homelessness.

Along with external-facing work at the agency, the directive targets employee programs such as those administered by LGBTQ resource groups, in keeping with the Trump-Vance administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government.

In recent weeks, federal agencies had begun changing their documents, policies, and websites for purposes of compliance with the new administration’s first executive action targeting the trans community, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

For instance, the Education Department had removed a webpage offering tips for schools to better support homeless LGBTQ youth, noted ProPublica, which broke the news of the “sweeping” changes announced in the email to DOE staff.

According to the news service, the directive further explains the administration’s position that “The deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology — whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms — negated the civil rights of biological females and fostered distrust of our federal institutions.”

A U.S. Senate committee hearing will be held Thursday for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, who has been criticized by LGBTQ advocacy groups. GLAAD, for instance, notes that she helped to launch and currently chairs the board of a conservative think tank that “has campaigned against policies that support transgender rights in education.”

NBC News reported on Tuesday that Trump planned to issue an executive order this week to abolish the Education Department altogether.

While the president and his conservative allies in and outside the administration have repeatedly expressed plans to disband the agency, doing so would require approval from Congress.

President Donald Trump on Monday signed a series of executive orders focused on the military, including a directive gutting the Pentagon’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs along with another banning transgender service members from the U.S. armed forces.

White House officials said new military standards for mental and physical readiness will exclude transgender troops, which would mean the EO goes further than the ban Trump implemented during his first term in 2017.

Among the first actions the president took after his inauguration on Jan. 20 was rescinding the order that former President Joe Biden signed immediately after he took office in 2021 that allowed trans and gender diverse service members to serve openly.

“The implementation [of the ban] is on the DoD regarding specifics,” a White House official told CNN.

A February 2018 memo by the U.S. Department of Defense contained carveouts to exempt trans service members already in uniform who had joined the military prior to the policy excluding them, along with those who do not require a change in gender or those who have been “stable for 36 consecutive months in their biological sex prior to accession.”

DEI practices, meanwhile, will be subject to review by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was narrowly confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Friday.

Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign on Monday announced plans to sue the Trump-Vance administration “to block implementation of yet another discriminatory and dangerous attempt to bar patriotic transgender military service members from serving openly in the U.S. armed services,” Lambda Legal said in a press release.

“We have been here before and seven years ago were able to successfully block the earlier administration’s effort to prevent patriotic, talented Americans from serving their country,” said Sasha Buchert, Lambda Legal counsel and director of the Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project. “Not only is such a move cruel, it compromises the safety and security of our country and is particularly dangerous and wrong. As we promised then, so do we now: we will sue.”

“Thousands of current service members are transgender, and many have been serving openly, courageously, and successfully in the U.S. military for more than eight years — not to mention the previous decades when many were forced to serve in silence,” Buchert added. “Once again, as during the first term, the Trump administration is attacking a vulnerable population based on bias, political opportunism, and demonstrably untrue ‘alternative facts,’ denying brave men and women the opportunity to serve our country without any legitimate justification whatsoever.” 

Sarah Warbelow, vice president of legal at HRC, said “Our military servicemembers, including thousands of transgender troops, wear the same uniform, take the same oath, and meet the same rigorous standards,” adding, “They are heroes who put their lives on the line to protect our country—and we owe them all a debt of gratitude.”

“Instead, this discriminatory ban insults their service and puts our national security at risk. Expelling highly trained members of our military undermines military readiness and wastes years of financial and training investments,” Warbelow said.

“It also needlessly upends the lives of families who have already sacrificed so much,” she said. “The Commander-in-Chief should prioritize our military’s safety and readiness, not use his position to issue bans on entire groups of people. This order is unconstitutional, and we will see this administration in court.” 

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights also filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the ban. The suit, Talbott v. Trump, was filed on equal protection grounds on behalf of six active service members and two individuals actively seeking enlistment, according to a statement from the groups.

“When you put on the uniform, differences fall away and what matters is your ability to do the job,” said Nicolas Talbott, Second Lieutenant, Army. “Every individual must meet the same objective and rigorous qualifications in order to serve.”

SPARTA Pride, a nonprofit of transgender people who currently serve or have served in the military, released a statement on Monday:

“Transgender Americans have served openly and honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces for nearly a decade. Thousands of transgender troops are currently serving, and are fully qualified for the positions in which they serve. 

“Transgender service members currently fill critical roles in combat arms, aviation, nuclear engineering, law enforcement, and military intelligence, many requiring years of specialized training and expertise. Transgender troops have deployed to combat zones, served in high-stakes missions, and demonstrated their ability to strengthen unit cohesion and morale. 

“While some transgender troops do have surgery, the recovery time and cost is minimal, and is scheduled so as not to impact deployments or mission readiness (all of which is similar to a non-emergent minor knee surgery). The readiness and physical capabilities of transgender service members is not different from that of other service members.

“SPARTA Pride is standing by to support all transgender service members impacted by this policy.” 

“Donald Trump’s executive orders are not only cruel, discriminatory, and wrapped in disinformation, but they will make all of us less safe. Throughout our military’s history, thousands of transgender people have served with honor, integrity, and bravery,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center. “Attempting to ban them is an insult to their humanity and the contributions that they have made.”

“Additionally, Trump’s decision to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives will lead to further harassment in our ranks, making underrepresented service members a greater target for discrimination,” she said. “Already we are hearing reports of anti-harassment policies being taken down based on the order to end equity and inclusion initiatives, which is appalling, misguided, and a gross insult to those who serve.”

Goss Graves added, “Everyone, regardless of race, gender or sex, should be able to work with dignity— including in the military — without fear of discrimination and harassment. We will continue to fight against these harmful abuses of power.”