Anyone else think Trump will ultimately do more damage to the gender critical cause?

I am in the US and I am worried about a backlash because of the extent of his orders.

His EO on gender identity is the only one I agreed with but I think it has gone too far in that he has announced that transgender people cannot serve in the US military. Why not? This is hardly the position the JKR took in her famous statement.

As for the idea that the republican party has become more centrist????

In the corridors of NASA buildings across the United States, ... pictures celebrating women in science are being taken down.

I don't know about the corridors of NASA buildings, but their website is full of pictures celebrating women in space, including at least one woman wearing a hijab! Lots of the photos of astronauts in space include people of colour. And the video on their recruitment page features a woman astronaut.

So although NASA have removed text about gender, race, etc., from their recruitment page, their website demonstrates diversity and inclusion in action.

The US Air Force was reported as having immediately removed all mention of the WASPs and the Tuskegee RedTails from their material. This was revealed to be completely untrue.

There has been a lot of scaremongering/untruths about 'removing' women, people of colour, disabled people etc. NASA continues to use historically accurate images of their diverse space crews. Historical facts about women aviators, African American pilots in WWII, remain because they are part of history.

That’s a no from me. Nice try, though

Today, on this side of the Atlantic, it just looks as though Trump, and by association America, are now on Putin's side. Ending funding of Ukraine is one thing, but the parroting Putin propaganda is in a different league.

Given the slew of detransitioner law suits against healthcare providers I suspect US heathcare will back off the gender gravy train very quickly. Once puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and genital surgeries have been shown to be harmful it'll be impossible to go back - this phase of medical history will surely be compared to lobotomies by future historians. So I would hope that sex realism will remain in the US when Trump is dumped.

I'm American, a lesbian, conservative, people don't understand that the old Republican party has changed, with Trump it became populist. And with this election lots of Democrats voted for him + Hispanics and Black Americans.
So the party is a lot broader and more Centrist which is a good thing. Look at the former Democrats in his administration; RFK jr , Tulsi Gabbard + gays + women
He's very popular, between giving women back their rights and unearthing immense graft and corruption with DOGE.
So I'm very happy.

How do we know that the women in the pictures are female?

Even if they all are female, there are more important things than a few pictures on a wall. All this shallow virtue signalling isn't worth shit compared to what could be done to properly support female scientists and encourage more young women (actual female people) in science.

I think that is my big issue with much of this version of DEI, it is shallow. It is so much easier to put a sticker on your laptop and add pronouns to an email signature than it is to make physical changes to a workplace to allow a disabled person to work there. Who needs good maternity care or childcare facilities when some of your male staff can identify as 'women' to even up the gender split of your company?

A better version of DEI would be practical and based in reality. It would not put one protected characteristic (I am in the UK) above all others.

*Images in my post are under review.

But now gender critical beliefs are being pushed hard as part of hard right-wing policy alongside lots of unacceptable things, doesn't this lend more credence to the idea of the tolerant left being correct,

The 'tolerant left'? Say what, now? 🙄

Nobody has done more harm to the GC cause in the US than the Democratic Party.

I'm going to ignore the unecessary 'cis' in @Echobelly's post, because there is a serious issue here.

Trump and co aren't just throwing out some of the fatuous or harmful aspects of DEI initiatives, they seem bent on throwing out important ones too.

The sort of 'keyword vetting' described here seems liable to harm women, people with disabilities and genuinely disadvantaged minorities.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/02/04/national-science-foundation-trump-executive-orders-words/

and definitely 'oh no' to In the corridors of NASA buildings across the United States, ... pictures celebrating women in science are being taken down

Firstly, both Washington Post and Nature are very hard left wing and anti-women/pro-trans, so I wouldn't take anything they say as gospel. In fact, I would trust them if they said it was the year 2025, I would check.

Secondly, its not a Maybe a handful of assaults could be prevented by anti trans legislation (and you 'anti trans' as well as use of 'cis' shows your agenda - its pro women legislation), it is many, MANY assaults, as the images here show. Its an epidemic, transwomen assaulting women and girls, just because the media hasn't reported it doesn't make these women and girls suffering non-existent and 'didn't happen'. Please stop minimising it. And its not just about assault or safety, its also about privacy and dignity for women and girls.

Maybe cis women won't occasionally lose out on medals or sports titles to trans women

This demonstrates your profound ignorance of the issue. It is literally thousands, not 'occasionally'. And its not just about medals or titles. Its also about having all those years and years of sacrifice of family time, friends time, free time to train hard to be selected for a team and it be all for nothing to lose to a boy. Not to mention girls losing out on a sports scholarship to college - when they could not have afforded to go otherwise. It is now over 5000 transwomen victors, 27 world records, 109 U.S. records, $1.6 million in prize money. Just in the last few years.

So you get close to admitting it doesn't say what you said it did, and you just pivoted. The list of words which would trigger review were GI jargon words and phrases. I didn't see women or woman on the list.
This is the Democrats problem in a nutshell - less than honest about one thing, so of course we discount what they say about something else.

And stop trying to force team women's rights with trans activism/men's privileges. We're not having it. TA is fundamentally inimical to women's rights and freedoms.

From the Nature article.

"In the corridors of NASA buildings across the United States, Pride flags and pictures celebrating women in science are being taken down. Scientists are adding space-mission stickers to their laptops to cover ones that displayed rainbows and other symbols of LGBT+ support. Employees are stripping pronouns from their e-mail signatures and holding darkly humorous conversations in which they try to avoid saying any pronouns at all."

Oh no! 😮

I am going to have to find archive versions when I get a chance, as the articles are both paywalled. I cannot comment fully until I have read them properly. However, I can't help but laugh at the above quote, given the hoops that we used to (and sometimes still do) have to go through to get posts to stay up on this forum RE pronouns.

You lost me completely at "cis women".

Story here, www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/02/04/national-science-foundation-trump-executive-orders-words/
wave it off if you want. I'll be honest it's possible they mean it just gets 'reviewed' to check it's not non-u and I could have jumped the gun on that. But it's still not a good look, nor is the fact that they have demanded all pages about 'women in leadership' be removed from NASA's website, for example. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00480-x

But that is not my main point. My main point is this is an anti women administration, though and through.

Maybe a handful of assaults could be prevented by anti trans legislation, but all abusers of women, every single one, will be emboldened by this administration. And the likelihood is high that it will be made even harder overall for any survivor to get justice. As many GC women are keen on saying 'men hate women so much they'll go to any length to demonstrate it'. I hope to God

Maybe fewer cis women will lose out on jobs to trans women, but given the administration have made crystal clear than women, POC, LGBTQ+,disabled etc people are not to get 'special treatment' (aka the treatment default humans get to take for granted) prepare for a lot more women to just plain lose out on jobs to men.

Maybe cis women won't occasionally lose out on medals or sports titles to trans women, but I wonder what happens to the funding of girls' and women's sports under such an administration?

Like I said, I'm having trouble seeing this as any kind of victory for 'protecting women'. OK so you've defeated the transes, but to me this seems to be at the expense of the even greater empowerment of every misogynist man.

Maybe there's a theoretical scenario where this wouldn't have to be the case, but it is with this revolting bunch.

and JD Vance moreso.

They're 'transgender critical'. They're more than happy to keep gender stereotypes/roles - they just want to pin them firmly to sex.

Gender critical is the green, the Conservative Evangelical Right - which is what Trump has aligned himself with - is the red.

Quite. Citation, please.

As in, the exact title/s of the Executive Order/s referred to, so that we can check the wording for ourselves.

I'm afraid I can't take your word for it that use of the words woman and women will prevent projects being funded.
I suspect that in reality it's the words trans and gender in conjunction with, or as a prefix or qualifier of, woman/women which will preclude federal funding being obtained. Am I right about that?

That is what I mean - I don't think he is interested enough to think it through. It's all just part of his benevolent grandfather self image (unless you are the wrong grandchild, but that is another thread).

Perhaps the difference is that Biden genuinely believes in his own virtue, whereas Trump thinks virtue is for wimps.

Biden is a career politician but I suspect was similar disinterested - just something a section of the party wanted that might have something to do with gay rights - an easy 'progressive' win.

I think that holds for some Democrats, but Biden is a true believer. Sarah McBride, the newly elected TW Congressperson from Delaware, used to work in Beau Biden's office and bonded with Joe and Jill over Beau's death.

TBH I don't think Biden understands what he believes in, he just wants to be a good ally to Beau's friend, but when we saw Biden wibbling on about "if your 8 year old wants to be trans that's great", it wasn't just him reading a script.

I don't think Trump really gives a rat's arse about trans people, but he knows people around him hate them and they're a good wedge issue.

Note that it's his government that has decreed the words 'women' and 'woman' as well as 'trans' and 'gender' have been put on a list of words that , if mentioned in research abstracts, will be grounds for it not being federally funded. So looks like someone is actually banning the word 'woman' after all.

Add to this that he is empowering every single abusive men, which is hardly surprising given his predilections. For example making it harder to impossible to report sexual misconduct in schools and colleges https://time.com/5836774/trump-new-title-ix-rules/ And I would be extremely surprised if he does not attempt to widen such obstructions to the entire public sphere; we are talking about the kind of man who almost certainly believes that 'false allegations' is at least as bad a problem as real assaults.

So in terms of this being any sort of victory for 'protecting women', it's not looking good.

I think he doesn't care beyond the short term political win. I doubt he has strong opinions about abortion either - just something for the conservatives.

He certainly hadn't taken on board all the issues in the EO, otherwise he would have referred to two sexes, not two genders.

(Biden is a career politician but I suspect was similar disinterested - just something a section of the party wanted that might have something to do with gay rights - an easy 'progressive' win.)

TRAs have always tried to conflate gender conservative and gender critical, and for some reason those deep male voices are easier for people like Starmer to hear - hence apparently trying to distance himself from this issue because of Reform.

Well, the Christian right still exists in the GOP, but it's been in steep decline for ages and it's mainly focused on abortion, which is now a state level issue.

I'd love to know how the idea got around that Trump is anti-gay. In his pre-politics celebrity years, he was gay-friendly long before it was fashionable. So much so that sometimes I wonder if he's latently bi.

So in the past month we've seen:

• Trump appointing gay and lesbian figures like Scott Bessent, Ric Grenell and Tammy Bruce to prominent roles in his administration
• Trump dancing with the Village People
• The Log Cabin Republicans deciding not to bother holding their own inauguration event, because the various GOP events were so gay-friendly it seemed redundant

Meanwhile on Reddit, people seem convinced he's going to send all the LGBTQXYZ folx to concentration camps.

I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about with Trump, but just maybe, on gay issues, this is the American left being dumb, irrational and tribalist.

Repeat post

It may well be that GC gets more associated with Trump in the short term, but there's not a lot to be done about that.
Many people will also think that GC (sex realism, really) attitudes are just correct and won't be bothered about who else supports them.

This too. It's never been in our control how people see gender critical views.