Donald Trump Issued an Executive Order Opposing Radical Gender Ideology in Schools

Here’s Why Stopping This Pernicious Agenda Is Necessary

Today’s guest post is by LGB human rights activist Justine Deterling.

On January 28, 2025, Donald Trump issued Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling, an executive order targeting curricula that promote critical race theory and gender ideology. Rooted in postmodernism and identity politics, these frameworks prioritize ideology over objective reality. Gender ideology, in particular, demands that subjective identity override biological sex in law and society, promotes medicalizing minors as a “human right,” and labels dissent as oppression.

Trump’s executive order calls for replacing these divisive narratives with a “patriotic” curriculum. While the history component may raise concerns about political bias, the gender-related language is clear: it recognizes the biological reality of two sexes and the consequences of sex differences while supporting protections for gender-dysphoric students from bullying and ensuring access to quality mental health care.

An agenda that sounds kind but is harmful to students- ETFOvoice

Scrutinizing Gender Education in Public Schools:Incorporating Evidence and Balancing Rights

Last year, my organization, Gender Health Query, collaborated with parents and professionals to expose how deeply embedded gender activism has become in schools. We published “Top Ten Gender Activism Myths That Make Good People Promote Bad Ideas & Policy,” revealing how these myths encourage identity disturbances, promote pseudoscience about gender and biology, and enforce policies that violate free speech, disadvantage girls, and undermine parental rights.

Schools now affirm gender identity without parental consent, introduce dissociation and body hatred, and push vulnerable youth—especially autistic and gender-nonconforming kids—toward irreversible medical interventions. This system-wide indoctrination has real-world consequences, particularly given the lack of credible evidence that medical transition benefits minors’ mental health (see systematic reviews here, here, here, here). Instead, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries cause lasting harm, including: osteopenia, permanent sterility, anorgasmia, early-onset menopause, and potential cognitive deficits.

In some states, such as Washington, minors as young as 13 can access these interventions without parental consent, compounding the risks. This isn’t just medical malpractice—it’s child abuse dressed up as progressive care.

Graphic used in gender trainings in schools

Trump’s executive order articulates the problem well:

“In many cases, innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors based on immutable characteristics. In other instances, young men and women are made to question whether they were born in the wrong body, viewing their parents and reality as enemies. These practices sow division, confusion, and distrust, undermining personal identity and family unity.”

Trans Activism as a Broader Agenda

The school system is just one front in the gender ideology movement, which seeks to solidify its principles into law through indoctrination. Beyond education, gender ideology has infiltrated medicine, mental health, journalism, LGBTQ organizations, academia, and even international agencies. It spreads misinformation about pediatric transition safety while stifling dissent. Activists manipulate children by claiming “gender-affirming care” prevents suicide, though no evidence supports this, and such rhetoric constitutes psychological abuse in any other context.

The pediatric transition model promotes unethical medical practices and experiments on minors without their full consent. Activists even promote grotesque practices like in-utero testosterone exposure and paraphilic men inducing lactation (here, here, here). Free speech is suppressed as schools and courts enforce “misgendering” penalties, violating expression rights. Vulnerable youth, especially lesbian and autistic teens, are pressured to identify as trans, harming their development. This reveals an ideology prioritizing agenda over evidence and ethics.

The Consequences of Biology Denialism

Denying biological reality has led to harmful school policies. Sexual boundary violations occur when boys enter girls’ sleeping quarters on trips, risking pregnancy through assault or consent. Most dysphoric males are heterosexual, and sperm and eggs defy “gender identities.” In sports, girls lose opportunities and medals to boys in their divisions, and some face punishment for objecting to locker room exposure. Classrooms suffer from pronoun policing and identity conflicts, disrupting learning and empowering unstable students.(here, here, here).

A major cultural consequence is the youth mental health crisis, with rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) rising among female teens, possibly a social contagion. Activists promote dissociation and extreme body modification, worsening mental health and rejecting biology. These policies demand a reassessment to protect students’ safety, privacy, and well-being.

“The mean age of gender dysphoria diagnosis is decreasing”

Activists introduce dissociation and body hatred into children’s lives, glorifying extreme body modification and identity instability.

A Gender Spectrum training in a 5th grade class in the US where youth receive “born in the wrong body” messaging

Eliza Mondegreen writes extensively about the harms of pediatric transition, particularly for at-risk, proto-gay, and autistic youth. Her work highlights how activists convince these children that their only chance for happiness is medical transition while telling them society wishes them harm. This psychological devastation fosters paranoia, alienation, and self-destruction.

A Logical and Noble Goal

As someone who has spent decades in LGB and gender-critical circles, I have never seen youth so mentally unwell or sexually confused. The data supports this observation. We must protect struggling children through holistic, ethical approaches—not pseudoscience.

This issue transcends Trump’s personality, political leanings, or debates over executive orders. The fundamental question is simple: Is stopping this agenda necessary? The answer is yes. Groups like GLAAD, Lambda Legal, and the HRC, which have pushed these harmful ideas, should not dictate the future of children.

Conclusion

Stopping radical gender ideology in schools is an essential step in safeguarding children, women, and LGB individuals. The Courage Coalition urges you to support this mission by subscribing to our Substack, sharing this message, and joining us in pushing back against harmful ideologies.

Subscribe today and help us restore reason, protect children, and defend reality.