Examination of Executive Order: Women’s Roles, and From Whom Do We Really Need Protecting?

Part II (of three) of a detailed examination of "The Gender" Executive Order

Jan 26, 2025

*This is Part II of a three part series on this Executive Order. See Part I, 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 II) An examination of the assault on women’s rights buried in this EO: Women’s “Roles”, and From Whom Do We Really Need Protecting?
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.

After thoroughly reading and examining this document, it struck me that it is obviously using “protection of women” as a very thin veil to subjugate and define women as the reproductive bearers, using qualifying events that have never happened and in fact downplay, or rather entirely ignore, the role of cisgender men in sexual assault and violence against women and girls.

I, as a “biological female”, take particular offense to the presumption, especially by a panel of largely accused-or-charged sexual assaulters, that I am unable to discern and establish “safe spaces” for myself without the action of men— I am a US Navy veteran well-versed in self defense tactics— and especially the assumption that I, like most other women of the United States— do not see this Executive Order for exactly what it is: a reductive definition of women [“female”] that seeks to (a) establish fetal personhood, (b) reduce women to our reproductive function, and (c) use the transgender community as a shield to absorb all the collateral damage from assaults perpetrated by cisgender heterosexual men.

I posit that the statistics I will lay out here will prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the largest and most prevalent, but indeed, for the purpose of this discussion, nearly-exclusive, threat to women and girls is cisgender heterosexual men, making this Executive Order an entirely fictitious attempt to smear the transgender community and blame them for acts of violence for which the cisgender heterosexual male community holds full and complete responsibility.

I am reminded of the astoundingly creepy and threatening statement made by our current President while on the campaign trail:

“Well, I'm going to do it, whether the women like it or not, I'm going to protect them.” ~Donald Trump

Let’s first examine where this EO dives deep into establishing “privacy in intimate spaces”, and why I call bullshit on all of it.

From the EO itself:

First of all, the term “intimate spaces” is thrown into use without definition. What is an '“intimate space”? A bathroom, locker room, or housing unit? I initially thought this was an oversight, but as I read on, it became clear that the opaque nature of terminology used was most certainly intentional; in fact, further down in the same document, the pretense of “intimate space” is abandoned altogether— we’ll get to that.

Digging into this Section piece by piece, I find myself with more questions than answers. Most of those questions run along the lines of, “What about the abuses already occurring in those spaces??”

The Demonstrative ‘Concern’ For Female Inmates in Prisons

Subsection (a) of Section 4 refers to the potential for abuse by transgender individuals upon women incarcerated in women-only prisons and detention centers. To date, literally zero statistics exist to support any case that transgender individuals have caused bodily harm to women in women-only prisons and detention centers.

But cisgender men? Boy howdy, do those statistics exist. In fact, National Public Radio [NPR] has come in clutch reporting the jaw-dropping fact that,

“A bipartisan Senate investigation has found male prison employees have assaulted women in at least two-thirds of the nation's federal prisons.”1

With such shocking results to a bipartisan investigation, why are there not flurries of Executive Orders being written to protect vulnerable women inside our nation’s prisons… from cisgender men in positions of power over those women?

Further, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found in an independent investigation:

“For the 3-year aggregate period of 2016–18, adult correctional authorities reported 2,229 substantiated incidents of inmate sexual victimization by staff.
The findings in the report are based on data from the Survey of Sexual Victimization (SSV)… administered to adult correctional authorities in all federal and state prison systems; all facilities operated by the U.S. military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and representative samples of public and private jail jurisdictions, private prisons and jails holding adults in Indian country.” 2

And even further, these investigations discovered that these men acted with foresight and malice to intentionally hide their egregious sexually violent behavior:

“As part of a sweeping two-year investigation into prison labor, The Associated Press found that correctional staff nationwide have been accused of using inmate work assignments to sexually abuse incarcerated women, luring them to isolated spots, out of view of security cameras.”3

Ergo, I’m crying foul that anyone in this administration, particularly as stocked and staffed by accused-and-proven rapists as it is, is overly concerned with the safety of women inside correctional facilities and detention centers.

The Demonstrative ‘Concern’ For Females in Shelters

Once again, statistics [read: facts] belie a different truth than the one peddled in this Executive Order. The facts are that homeless women are far more likely to be assaulted, and transgender individuals are assaulted both in homeless shelters and on the street in staggering numbers:

“Women experiencing homelessness are at an increased risk of becoming victims of sexual violence. Such women are particularly vulnerable to multiple forms of interpersonal victimization, including sexual violence at the hands of acquaintances, strangers, sex traffickers, and intimate partners while on the street, in dangerous housing situations, or in shelters.”4

“One study shows that 22% of transgender individuals living in homeless shelters were sexually assaulted by residents or staff (National Sexual Assault Coalition). Additionally, Black and multiracial transgender individuals report higher rates of sexual assault in homeless shelters compared to white transgender individuals (National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2020).”5

So let’s drop the faux ‘concern’ for the plight of anyone, “biological” female or transgender, who experiences violence while being unhoused in the United States. Such problems already exist in abundance, and again, with perpetrators who are overwhelmingly cisgender males and virtually never transgender individuals— more to fact, transgender individuals are overwhelmingly the victims, rather than the perpetrators, in these scenarios.

The Glaring Omission of The Dangers to Women and Children Inside Churches and Houses of Worship

The absolute farce of concern for the safety of women and girls in this Executive Order is laughable when we look at the thousands of sexual assaults that take place within churches and houses of worship within the United States. These statistics are from Protestant churches alone:

“Three faith-based insurance companies reported 7,095 insurance claims of sexual abuse by clerical members, church employees, congregation members, or others involved within these settings from 1987 to 2007 (The Associated Press, 2007). These reports indicate an average of 260 claims of sexual abuse per year. Most recently, the Houston Chronicle published a series titled "Abuse of Faith," uncovering sexual abuse and cover-up within the largest Protestant Christian organization in the U.S. (i.e., the SBC). They identified 380 sexual abusers and 700 alleged victims over 20 years (Downen, Olsen, & Tedesco, 2019). Moreover, Downen et al. (2019) found that 35 Southern Baptist ministers were hired at churches, despite being accused of sexual misconduct or abuse, demonstrating a pattern of institutional issues in responding to alleged sexual abuse.”6

And these statistics within the above report reflect the sexual assault claims within the Roman Catholic Church:

“An extensive investigation into the sexual abuses found an estimated 16,000 victims involving 3,700 Roman Catholic clergies (Bishop Accountability, 2011). It has also been reported that the Roman Catholic Church has paid over $3 billion to victim compensation and related expenditures (Abuse Lawsuit, 2021).”

So please explain why the American people are supposed to trust Christian Nationalists with protecting women and children when they represent demonstrably the largest organized segment of documented sexual assaulters within our borders??

According to this data, the single most dangerous institution to women and children is the Christian Church and the cisgender men who use its cover to sexually abuse and rape vulnerable women and children, systemically and as a matter of routine, under the protection of the cross and with little to no penalties.

So What Is An “Intimate Space”, and Why Does It Matter?

Legal definitions matter. When perusing legislation, bills, and legal documents, a subsection of said document always includes the definitions for all terms therein, lest there be any confusion. This Executive Order is no different, with its detailed (albeit biologically false and confusing) definitions of “male” and “female”.

This makes the glaring lack of definition of other terms all the more noticeable.

What the heck is an “intimate space”? It could potentially mean any of the following: bathroom, changing room, locker room, or dormitories/housing.

However, in the void of any intentional definition, “intimate space” could be applied to any of the following:

the corporate boardroom
the CEO’s executive suite
the executive offices, conference rooms, and board rooms of any major corporation or government entity
the very halls of Congress, the floor of Senate, or the Oval Office itself

Lacking a clear and concise definition of this term, the application thereof can be as broad and inventive as the creative patriarchal mind can conjure.

In fact, in Section 5 of this Executive Order, the pretense is dropped entirely as the term “intimate space” is excluded from a very specific guidance set forth:

This line in particular sets forth exceptionally broad and vague determinations of spaces that can be labeled “single-sex spaces”: “The Attorney General shall issue guidance to ensure the freedom to express the binary nature of sex and the right to single-sex spaces in workplaces and federally funded entities covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Oh! Thanks for clearing that up! That clearly gives room for any space to be labeled a “single-sex space” in any workplace in the United States. Great Gilead, you guys, you understand what this means?

The office itself, any workplace in the US, can be labeled as “male only”, thereby bypassing workplace freedom for all women therein.

The True, Barely-Hidden Assault on Women Buried In Verbiage

OK, now that we’ve determined that part of the intent of this Executive Order is to establish a verifiable pathway to workplaces legally excluding women, let’s turn our attention to the bizarre, and very specifically and uniquely worded, definitions of biology therein.

For a more detailed analysis and breakdown of the problematic and outright false biological definitions of this EO, click here.

In their zeal to define personhood at conception with the wording of their definition of biological female, the scientifically-illiterate authors of this EO actually establish the determination that all Americans are, in fact, female: “Sec. 2, subsection (d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.”

Let us be very cautious as to not ignore the connection in one sentence of these terms: person + conception.

This is a blatant, outright attempt to define personhood at conception, playing directly into the goals of the Heritage Foundation, along with countless other Christian Nationalist entities, as laid out in Project 2025, to establish a federal abortion ban and remove all reproductive rights from the women of the United States.

Where do I draw the conclusion that these definitions are the fruit of the Heritage Foundation?

Why, from The Heritage Foundation itself!

From their ‘model legislation,’ “Defining Sex Act”:

Whereas, in human beings, there are two—and only two—sexes: male and female, which refer to the two body structures (phenotypes) that, in normal development, correspond to one or the other gamete—sperm for males and ova for females;
Whereas, every individual is either male or female;
Whereas, an individual’s sex can be observed or clinically verified at or before birth;
Whereas, rare disorders of sexual development are not exceptions to the binary nature of sex;
Whereas, in no case is an individual’s sex determined by stipulation or self-identification;
Whereas, there is increasing confusion about the definition and implications of sex as a biological truth and its relationship to concepts and terms including but not limited to sex assigned at birth, gender, gender identity, gender role, gender expression, and experienced gender;
Whereas, confusion and ambiguities surrounding the definitions of sex, male, female, and related terms can hinder individual efforts to enjoy equal treatment under the law;
Whereas, legal equality of the two sexes—male and female—does not imply that the sexes are identical to each other or are the same in every respect;
Whereas, with respect to the two sexes—male and female—separate facilities or sports leagues established because of or organized according to physical differences between the sexes do not constitute unequal treatment under the law;
Whereas, physical differences between males and females are enduring, and the two sexes are not fungible;
Therefore, it is the intent of the legislature of this state/commonwealth to clarify and reconcile the meaning of sex, male, female, and related terms in state laws, administrative rules, and guidelines.
PROVISIONS
Be it enacted that for the purposes of the laws, administrative rules, and guidelines of the state/commonwealth of __________:
An individual’s sex refers to his or her biological sex, either male or female.
When used to refer to a natural person, a female is defined as an individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have—but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption—the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization.
When used to refer to a natural person, a male is defined as an individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have—but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption—the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes sperm for fertilization.
A woman is defined as an adult human female.
A girl is defined as a minor human female.
A man, except when used as a generic reference to human beings, is defined as an adult human male.
A boy is defined as a minor human male.
A mother is defined as a female parent.
A father is defined as a male parent.
Gender, when used alone to refer to males, females, or the natural differences between males and females:
(a) shall be considered a synonym for sex, and
(b) shall not be considered a synonym or short-hand expression forgender identity, experienced gender, gender expression, or gender role.
This definition shall not apply when the term gender is used in conjunction with other words or as an adjective to modify other words, or when context or explicit definition in pre-existing state law, administrative rules, or guidelines indicates otherwise.
Gender identity, if used in state law, administrative rules, or guidelines, shall not be considered a synonym or substitute for sex or gender.7

Please excuse my French for a moment, but… does this sound fucking familiar?!

Hold on, let me grab a screenshot of Executive Order: “DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT” for you to compare:

Is it me, or are these basically identical? So is it me, or is The Heritage Foundation, an extremist Christian Nationalist terrorist group, literally writing policy for our new ~~regime~~ administration?

[I’m only going to say this once, but I’m going to say it really loud: WE TOLD YOU SO.]

Why does this matter?

Because of the end goal. The end goal, according to The Heritage Foundation themselves, is a ban on all abortions from conception (‘heartbeat’), not only here in the United States, but worldwide:

“The Heritage enterprise will protect unborn life.
We will advance the Heartbeat Protection Act to prohibit abortion nationwide after the moment a heartbeat can be detected. At the state level, we will work with governors, legislators, and other state-based allies to pass heartbeat laws (or better) on abortion.
We will work to prohibit the interstate commerce of abortion pills in pro-life states by advancing legislation in both the House and Senate.
We will encourage Congress to continue the current prohibitions on the federal taxpayer funding of abortions both at home and abroad and to continue the Weldon Amendment that protects health care providers who decline to provide, pay for, or refer patients for abortions. We will work to pass legislation in the House to enshrine the conscience protections of the Weldon Amendment permanently in law.
We will work to delay Department of Health and Human Services regulations that would rescind pro-life conscience protections for health care workers. We will accomplish this by filing thoroughly researched, substantive comments and objections from our Heritage experts that will require substantive responses from HHS.
We will advance a bill to require foreign nongovernmental organizations to agree not to perform or promote abortion as a condition of receiving U.S. funding. For those foreign NGOs that refuse to comply, the bill would redirect their funding to other organizations that respect innocent human life.”8

This seemingly innocent Executive Order, in which they claim to “protect” women, lies out a clear path to:

Define gender to clearly identify women by our reproductive function > establish personhood at conception > ban all abortion at “personhood”.

My conclusion is this: it is crystal clear this Executive Order has little to do with transgender individuals and a lot to do with defining women for the purposes of identifying whom to target with a federal abortion ban and prohibition on reproductive freedoms for said identified women.

Next up: we examine the very specific and targeted verbiage as it relates to transgender individuals as well as a comprehensive review of the massive propaganda campaign targeting this infinitesimal segment of our population for harassment, assault, and annihilation.

Stay tuned for Part III: Propaganda vs. The Trans Community. Make sure you’re subscribed to get this and further examinations of the Executive Orders of President Donald Trump. Subscribe now for a mere $2/mo to support this ongoing research and work.

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).

As we continue to dive into this necessary, in-depth examination of the flurry of Executive Orders coming out of this new administration, please remember to take care of yourself. Don’t burn out too soon. Although it may seem like a month, we’re still only in week one.

Get your rest 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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Johnson, C. (2022, December 13). Male prison employees assault women in at least two-thirds of U.S. prisons. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/13/1142594198/male-prison-employees-assault-women-in-at-least-two-thirds-of-u-s-prisons

Substantiated incidents of sexual victimization reported by Adult Correctional Authorities, 2016–2018. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2023, January 31). https://bjs.ojp.gov/press-release/substantiated-incidents-sexual-victimization-reported-adult-correctional-authorities

US News & World Reports. (2024, October 21). Prison work assignments used to lure and rape female inmates. guards sometimes Walk Free. Prison Work Assignments Used To Lure And Rape Female Inmates. Guards Sometimes Walk Free. https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2024-10-31/prison-work-assignments-used-to-lure-and-rape-female-inmates-guards-sometimes-walk-free

Zirkle, L. (2022, September 15). Sexual violence against women experiencing homelessness. Sexual Violence Against Women Experiencing Homelessness | Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy | Georgetown Law. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-journal/blog/sexual-violence-against-women-experiencing-homelessness/

Hogsten, T. (2024, August 9). Sexual violence in homeless communities. MCASA. https://mcasa.org/newsletters/article/sexual-violence-homeless-communities

Orleans, A. S. D., Loyola University New. (2023). Child Sex Abusers in Protestant Christian Churches: An Offender Typology. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology. https://doi.org/10.21428/88de04a1.000ff84d

Defining Sex Act. The Heritage Foundation. (n.d.). https://www.heritage.org/model-legislation/defining-sex-act

Protect unborn life and family formation. The Heritage Foundation. (n.d.-b). https://www.heritage.org/protect-unborn-life-and-family-formation