Alas, We're Going to Have to Keep Talking About Trump's Executive Orders

And try to communicate that some of what's in them is reasonable

Donald Trump learned his leadership tactics, if we can call them that, from the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, his abrasive gay mentor who helped him win lawsuits and elevate to minor New York celebrity status in the 80s. Always be on the offensive, Cohn taught him, and attack back ten times harder than you’re being attacked. We can see his slew of executive orders, almost 40 after a mere week in office, as an example of this approach. Paralyze the defense with an onslaught of directives.

It's almost impossible for the average onlooker to dispassionately evaluate their validity—I mean, heck, there are more than 70 now, about subjects many of us know little about. And even the ones I have read, and know quite a bit about, use right-coded, somewhat inflammatory language like “mutilation” or “gender ideology.” I know that people in my liberal world see the orders as rooted in bigotry—as attacks on trans people.

But I urge people to avoid what’s known as “intentional fallacy:” judging a work based on the assumed intentions of its creator. Focus on what these directives actually say. Take the order from January 28th, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” It’s loaded with reasonable and necessary changes.

It dislodges the guidelines created by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health—a group that has suppressed evidence and proven itself entirely unreliable—and quite unprofessional.

It rolls back sanctuary laws that may allow children to get medical interventions without parental knowledge or consent. It extends the statutes of limitations, so those who’ve been hurt can sue. And it prevents government insurance from covering these cosmetic interventions.

In short, it slows down the gender industrial complex. (More details in this piece I wrote for Unherd—which offered a much more celebratory headline than I would have chosen.) Indeed, by January 30th, some hospitals had announced that they’d no longer be providing gender-affirming care—in some cases, for adults as well as for youth.

Slowing down, pausing, stopping—that’s what should have happened the moment we heard from detransitioners, including depressed teen girls whose doctors had prescribed the removal of their breasts as a cure. We’ve had plenty of other opportunities. Jamie Reed blowing the whistle on the Washington University Clinic. The Cass Review. So many times we could have paused for reflection—for time to think! Instead, the movement barrelled ahead.

And that’s why we should not dismiss these orders as ideologically-fueled fear-mongering and hate. Rather, I see them in the spirit of what happens in my apartment almost every night. I tell the kids to clean up, in a very nice voice. I come back half-an-hour later, and they haven’t done a lick of work. I ask again, respectfully, adding reasons why it matters: I find it difficult to work in such a messy environment. Research shows doing chores is good for kids’ development. This is how you earn allowance. An hour later, when it’s still a mess, I say, with much greater exasperation: Clean. This. Up. Because I said so.

And then, after hours of pleading and cajoling and presenting evidence and bribes and bait, I scream at the top of my lungs. Then they clean up, grumbling about my short temper, and my focus on petty things like cleaning.

These executive orders on sex and gender are screaming things that many people have said nicely for 10 years.

If you react to them as if they’re an assault, an overreach, hysterical—well, Democrats, liberals, and the gender-affirmation industry had plenty of opportunities to correct course in a less heated environment.

I’d hoped that, during Trump 2.0, the media might avoid another outbreak of Trump Derangement Syndrome. I’d hoped the media would remove its polarized lens and tell me what amid the chaos was reasonable and what was dangerous. I don’t want to be whipped into a permanent frenzy for the next four years. I don’t want those around me to be, either.

Oh well. The order released on January 29, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” articulates mostly reasonable positions, like not teaching that “Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally or inherently superior to members of another race, color, sex, or national origin,” or that “An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, bears responsibility for, should feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of, should be discriminated against, blamed, or stereotyped for, or should receive adverse treatment because of actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin, in which the individual played no part.”

At the same time, this order has some creepy jingoistic language that invokes a North Korean educational system, demanding fealty and a slanted historical view—funny that they keep calling the lefties communist! They want to make sure we receive a “patriotic education,” which means:

grounded in:
(i) an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles;
(ii) a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history;
(iii) the concept that commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified; and
(iv) the concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper.

How does one get accurate and honest along with an insistance that America is greater than it once was. (Wait, I thought it used to be great, and that’s why we have to make it great again?)

Some in education are experiencing this as threatening to arrest teachers for using a student’s preferred pronouns. And look, yeah, that could happen. The directive says:

The Attorney General shall coordinate with State attorneys general and local district attorneys in their efforts to enforce the law and file appropriate actions against K-12 teachers and school officials who violate the law by:
(i) sexually exploiting minors;
(ii) unlawfully practicing medicine by offering diagnoses and treatment without the requisite license; or
(iii) otherwise unlawfully facilitating the social transition of a minor student

In theory, yeah, using identity-based pronouns, instead of sex-based pronouns, could be conceived of as unlawfuly facilitating social transition. But whether it will be, and whether it’ll be enforced—who knows.

What liberals don’t seem to understand is that already teachers have been fired for not using a student’s preferred pronouns, or for sharing a student’s social transition with the kid’s own parents. Do I want compelled speech replaced with different compelled speech? No. But do I think schools should be in the business of facilitating the psychological intervention of social transition, or teaching gender identity as fact, or deciding who can say or think or feel what based on identity category?

I do not.

Too bad my compatriots in the media can’t represent that point of view. They present these orders as rolling back “social protections for transgender and intersex people,” even though it doesn’t explicitly ban the treatments that intersex people seek. The New York Times calls their language “severe and disdainful.”

Well, that’s what you get for not cleaning your room.