Examination of Executive Order: Propaganda vs. The Trans Community
Part III (of three) of a detailed examination of "The Gender" Executive Order
*This is Part III of a three part series on this Executive Order. See Part I and Part II, as well as my previous examination of another alarming Executive Order establishing an SS within the United States. For a limited time, grab a paid subscription to CounterStory Media for $2/mo. This offer expires Jan 31, 2025. Subscribe now to fund future coverage of President Trump’s Executive Orders as well as CounterStory Media’s ongoing mission of sharing stories that audit the narrative, spread truth, and share personal narratives that change not only hearts and minds but legislation, policy, and law.*
Because of the complex [read: bizarre] nature of the wording chosen, I realized that to truly examine this EO in one piece would result in a thesis-length document that would be too difficult to digest in one sitting. As a result, I’ve broken it down into three segments:
Part I) An examination of the peculiar biological terms used in this EO: Biology…or Bullshit?
Part III) The meat and potatoes: an examination of the assault on the trans community that is the blatant purpose of this EO: Propaganda vs. The Trans Community.
Let’s get into it.
One of the most controversial topics in our nation over the past decade can easily be named: the “transgender agenda”. Although this community comprises a mere 1% of the population, somehow we are led to believe that this extreme minority has come out swinging to convince our children to change their gender, fly rainbow flags from every flagpole, and seep insidiously into our society and culture with representation on television and film.
<s>Egads!</sarcasm>
The Executive Order titled “DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT” has been proven, in Parts I and II of my critical analysis, to
(a) be the exact verbiage, word for word, from Model Legislation written by The Heritage Foundation years before this administration was sworn into power,
(b) to be rife with biological and scientific inaccuracy, some bordering on absurd (like the part identifying every single American as biologically female), and
(c) press several blatantly unconstitutional concepts and ideas while assuming a condescendingly paternal tone with women, most of whom (myself included) never asked for the “protection” of the Republican party, thanks for asking.
The overarching goal of this Executive Order is to make the reader believe that the transgender community is an immediate and egregious threat to the safety of women throughout our nation, a claim so patently absurd and false it would be laughable if they weren’t all stone-cold serious.
I demonstrated in Part I that the claims of “biology” were easily disproven and debunked as non-scientific and ignoring simple, basic, rudimentary knowledge of human biology.
I demonstrated in Part II the very thinly veiled attack on women and set-up to establishing fetal personhood and defining women by their reproductive function, as well as setting up legal precedent to exclude people from the workplace solely by gender.
Part III will set forth two main arguments against this absurd executive order: first, that the statistics on transgender violence prove only how much they are the victims of said violence and how literally no statistical or empirical evidence exists to the contrary, and second, how this regime has used an almost-unprecedented propaganda campaign, sparing no expense, to present this twisted image of the transgender community, one with absolutely no basis in reality.
Parts I and II were very lengthy: I will strive to curtail this part so as to minimize repetition. I encourage you to look back at those pieces to capture the entire picture.
Let’s examine the several points of phrasing within this Executive Order that imply heavily that the transgender community is an immediate bodily threat to the women of America:
Section 1. Purpose. 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. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.
The repeated use of the words “attack” and “protect” in the very first section leads the reader to believe that there is, in fact, some imminent attack on American women.
However, as I proved in Part II, statistics clearly prove that the largest and most imminent threat to American women…. are cisgender heterosexual men, as those men are responsible for the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults and rape on American women and children.
Even more if they’re inside a church.
When we look at the statistics around actual violent incidents in bathrooms, we see two things: a) transgender individuals are the victims of said incidents, and b) cisgender men are the only entities going into bathrooms and harming women and children.
Finding verifiable data on this takes literal hours of digging, as it would require a central report of hundreds of thousands of police departments and precincts compiling the data from police arrest records into a central repository, and as such, we do not have such a central repository (for the collection of this specific information). However, many groups have spent countless hours submitting FOIA requests and manually collecting this information to come to the following conclusions:
“We were able to locate only one report of a transgender individual committing a sexual offense (taking photos) in a dressing room. Instances of cisgender men dressing as women to gain access to women in various stages of dress also appear to be an extremely rare phenomenon based on our review. Of the incidents in which cis-gender males dressed as women to gain access to female facilities, 11 occurred in restrooms and 7 occurred in other female facilities.”1
To clarify, one instance of a transgender individual behaving inappropriately, in a dressing room, has been reported on an actual arrest record.
The other 18 events where “men in dresses” were arrested committing these acts in female-only spaces were all men who self-identified and were later confirmed to be cisgender, heterosexual men.
Once again, the actual root of the problem is cisgender male violence.
Another study focused on five major metro areas for this same study, which resulted in nearly-identical findings:
“Based on our review of sexual assault complaints in Atlanta, Dallas, Miami Beach, Miami Gardens and Tucson, before and after an official amendment to the human rights ordinance in that locality, we did not find evidence of sexual assaults taking place in which men, under the guise of being women or transgender, entered women’s bathrooms to commit a sexual assault or otherwise victimize women.”2
In a firm conclusion,
“The violence argument is a constant in this discussion, although statistics show that there is no concrete data to prove that trans people are a threat or participate on acts of violence against users of women's bathroom.”3
There just are not statistics to support The Heritage Founda…. er, the ‘government’s’ claim of trans violence against others in gender-specific ‘intimate spaces’. Even if there are one or two isolated incidents, this hardly constitutes a pattern worthy of extreme governmental action.
At all.
Not even a little.
There is plenty of evidence for cisgender men harming people in those spaces, but the facts just do not support any argument that trans people are violent.
Which leads me to my next point: this is a massive, extraordinarily-funded propaganda campaign on the scale of nothing else short of the Nazi propaganda against Jews in the 1930’s.
The Propaganda Campaign to Smear and Vilify the Transgender Community
A bold claim, yes, and again, comparing to Nazi’s?
If the shoe fits…
In 2022, Marco Rubio spent upwards of $50M in ads targeting LGBT people.
Two short years later, Donald Trump spent a staggering 215 million dollars on anti-trans ads in the leadup to the 2024 elections.4
This would buy thirty Super Bowl ad spots at $7M a pop, a full third of all Super Bowl ad slots.
Let’s compare and contrast the propaganda of Nazi Germany with that of Donald Trump.
Top right [for interpretation]: Propaganda slide (circa 1933-1939) entitled ‘The Jewish spirit undermines the healthy powers of the German people.’ (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Marion Davy)
Top left [for interpretation]: Polish anti-Jewish propaganda poster, 1943. The text reads, ‘The mortal enemy of Christianity’. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn545098
None of these advertisements inform the reader that 36% of transgender youth with restricted bathroom or locker room access reported sexual assault in the last 12 months.5
None of these advertisements inform the reader that many transgender individuals have restructured their day, taken in less food and water, and even stayed home to avoid using a public restroom altogether for fear of violence towards them.
This campaign used propaganda at a scale not seen since Nazi Germany, unloading the entire burden of threat of sexual assault on trans women rather than on cis men where it belongs. The statistical reality is that women and children are in far more danger in the Christian houses of worship, churches and cathedrals, than in any public restroom in the entire nation, as cisgender men in churches perpetrate literally 100% more sexual violence against women and children than transgender individuals in public restrooms.
Not virtually.
Literally.
Listen, at the end of the day, we’re not falling for it.
Sneaking a fetal personhood assignment into this executive order is not lost on us.
Seeking to delineate spaces strictly by gender, spaces which could include corporate boardrooms, executive suites, or even the very halls of Congress, is not lost on us.
Seeking to discriminate against and vilify an infinitesimal percentage of the American population and use said discrimination to enact sweeping divisive and discriminatory legislation that violates civil rights, encroaches on freedoms, and lays the groundwork for extraordinary appalling legislation against women is not lost on us.
Targeting a tiny population due to the discomfort of a few is regressive and lacks purpose other than outright discrimination. Some white people experienced discomfort over using the restroom with black people, too. We ultimately determined that was not constitutional grounds to continue segregating restrooms.
The Question of Applicability and Enforceability
A final note: this executive order conveniently excludes any method or vehicle of enforceability. Not to be deterred, and right on cue, House Republicans pass the disturbing Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025, which opens the door to a potential mechanism of enforcement via genital inspections.
So let me get this straight… the party of the “Moral Majority”, which is firmly in control, is the party that is:
openly attempting to establish a patriarchal theocracy,
hyper-fixated on LGBT people and constantly reducing them to sexualized tropes and accusing them of pedophilia, accusations that more accurately describe cisgender heterosexual Christian men in positions of power in churches,
openly drafting laws whose only logical vehicle of enforcement would be genital inspections, not to mention…
the party openly endorsing child marriage in several ‘red’ states.
Let’s call it what it is: the Moral Majority’s creepy and not-so-subtly pedophilic desire to implement genital checks upon women and children and entrap them in abusive “relationships” for the purpose of control, suppression of opposition, and the foundational undergirding for patriarchal rule.
Sound about right?
Doesn’t sound like a trans problem… it sounds like a Christian Nationalist agenda.
You’re not fooling anyone. We’re on to you.
And we’re not going down without a fight.
CURRENT ACTION ITEMS: HOW YOU CAN TAKE ACTION NOW.
1) Copy this sample letter (copy and paste and customize with your information) regarding this Executive Order and send (mail or email) it to your state’s elected officials. Find your local elected officials here.
2) Google your city’s name + “mutual aid”. Find a way to get involved on the ground. Focus your immediate energy on organizations working with immigrant, migrant, and refugee communities.
3) Watch your digital footprint. Thoughtfully consider removing your presence on Meta platforms, and X, and examine where else your name and political speech are available online. Determine your personal level of comfort with your online presence, and delete as much as you feel necessary.
4) Donate to ACLU, GLAAD, and/or Lambda Legal. If you’re feeling extra spicy, make the donation in honor of the President and have the notice sent to the White House, or your local politician(s).
Thank you for joining me in this lengthy three-part journey. After a day of rest, I’ll be diving into a in-depth exploration of another Executive Order. If you have a specific EO you’d like me to research, shoot me an email. Until then, stay steady and stay strong. We will endure!
Drink your water and be well,
My name is Melissa Corrigan, and I’m a freelance writer/thought sharer/philosopher in coastal Virginia. I am a mom, a wife, a veteran, and so much more. I deeply enjoy sharing my thoughts and receiving feedback that sparks genuine, respectful conversation.
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Barnett, Brian & Nesbit, Ariana & Sorrentino, Renee. (2018). The Transgender Bathroom Debate at the Intersection of Politics, Law, Ethics, and Science. The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. 46. 232-241. 10.29158/JAAPL.003761-18.
Archival Review of sexual assault complaints ... (n.d.). https://www.policinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PF_Research-Brief_JULY-2017-FINAL-1.pdf
Bagagli, B. P., Chaves, T. V., & Zoppi Fontana, M. G. (2021, March 31). Trans women and public restrooms: The legal discourse and its violence. Frontiers in sociology. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8022685/
McNeill, Z., Kroll, A., Palast, G., Walker, C., Goldsmith, E., Rosenthal, S., Zhang, S., Liz Theoharis &, & Hartung, W. D. (2024, November 14). Republicans spent nearly $215m on TV ads attacking trans rights this election. Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/republicans-spent-nearly-215m-on-tv-ads-attacking-trans-rights-this-election/
Writer, B., By, & Writer, S. (2024a, November 22). Transgender teens with restricted bathroom access at higher risk of sexual assault. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/transgender-teens-restricted-bathroom-access-sexual-assault/