Transgender community reacts to Trump proposal to redefine gender

Seattle’s transgender community reacts to a proposal by the Trump administration to redefine gender to just male and female as the president weighs in.

The news broke over the weekend. The Trump administration is considering requiring that a person’s gender always be the gender assigned at birth. Decisions by the Obama administration had changed the legal idea of gender treating it more as a choice.

The news has hit the transgender community hard. As many see it, this is the Trump administration’s latest attempt to turn back the clock on their rights.

“We’ve been seeing it unfold since 2016,” said Dana Savage, managing partner in the Helios Law Group.

She spoke from the comfort and security of her law office in Ballard, a year and a half after she transitioned from the life she knew as a man. And she says cruel reminders of her hard fought transition to female come when she least expects them.

“I was walking down the street on Friday just to go get lunch,” she said. “And some guy just started singing ‘he looks like a lady.’ It’s just that level of open attacks I have had. I’ve had people threaten to rape and kill me in the streets because I’m trans.”

She says it is not academic for her. “Oh, it’s personal,” she says. “It’s very personal.”

What’s personal is a memo leaked over the weekend that the Trump administration is considering whether it wants to redefine gender. It would mean one’s gender assigned at birth would stay the same throughout one’s life.

The president confirmed as much today. “They have a lot of different things happening with respect (to) transgender right now,” he said, as he boarded a helicopter. “You know that as well as I do. We’re looking at it very seriously.”

Savage was asked what impact the memo has.

“Alarm and fear,” she said, “on my phone, my Facebook messenger, my e-mail. I have a lot of trans clients, a lot of trans friends. And I don’t think a single one of them has not turned to me and asked ‘what the heck is going on?’ ”

Those are emotions are sadly familiar to members of Seattle’s transgender community. Thousands of people turned out for this parade just two years ago to show their support for Michael Volz, beaten at a Capitol Hill fundraiser for the victims of the Orlando massacre.

Now the Trump proposal is reawakening those concerns.

“I think immediately people read and rightfully they feel scared or alarmed,” said Karter Booher. He runs the Ingersoll Gender Center in Seattle. The organization was started by a transgender woman more than 40 years ago to help people, such as she, navigate their transition.

Booher says they have been getting calls since word of the memo leaked. Their message?

“In Washington State, we have the Washington law against discrimination that is still in full effect,” he said. “Folks should continue to access services and exercise their rights and live the lives as they’ve been living.”

Late Monday, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson offered this assurance. “The report that the Administration is considering narrowing the definition of gender is incredibly troubling,” he wrote. “I will continue to defend the rights of transgender Washingtonians.”

“I recognize that what this administration is doing is not what the majority of the population thinks,” says Savage.

She believes the laws are already on their side.

“I think the world is changing for the better,” she said. “It’s just that there is going to be pushback any time you want to make positive change.”

In fact, what she and others are telling the community is to relax. This is just a memo. And many people will be fighting to keep it just that.

By Deborah Horn, KIRO 7