By <a class="c-link lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-color-brand-primary-dark:hover lrv-u-text-decoration-underline:hover lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase" href="https://www.rollingstone.com/author/elizabeth-yuko/" > Elizabeth Yuko</a> <br> Hours after his inauguration, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/t/donald-trump/" id="auto-tag_donald-trump" data-tag="donald-trump" >Donald Trump</a> signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" >executive order</a> declaring that in the eyes of the U.S. government, “women are biologically female, and men are biologically male” — meaning transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and two-spirit individuals would no longer be recognized. But it didn’t stop there. This deliberate rollback of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/t/trans/" id="auto-tag_trans" data-tag="trans" >trans</a> and other LGBTQ+ rights and protections also includes a section with definitions that belies basic biology: <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" >claiming</a> that “‘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.”<br> “It’s especially egregious that this order defines ‘sex’ as starting ‘at <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222286/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" >conception</a>,’ which is impossible,” says Ash Lazarus Orr, press relations manager at <a href="https://transequality.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" >Advocates for Trans Equality</a>. “While it’s possible to know chromosomal information, human embryos don’t show sexual differentiation at that stage — and all embryos initially develop along ‘female’ lines until later in development.” <div class="admz" id="adm-inline-article-ad-1"> <div class="adma boomerang" data-device="Desktop" data-width="300"> <div style="min-width:50px;min-height:75px;" class="pmc-adm-boomerang-pub-div ad-text" data-priority="10" > <div id="gpt-dsk-tab-article-inbody-uid0" class="adw-300 adh-250" data-is-adhesion-ad=""> <script type="application/javascript">
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