After a presidential campaign characterised by anti-trans slogans — such as ads stating, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” — it came as no surprise when President Trump signed a sweeping executive order defining trans people out of legal existence.

The order, titled, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government,” states, “It is the policy of the United States to recognise two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

While it remains to be seen precisely how the executive order is going to be implemented, its ramifications will be both logistical and symbolic.

A policy enacted in April 2022 by the Biden administration allowed passport applicants to select an X to designate their gender identity.

Trump’s order will put an end to the X option on passports (though not necessarily on driver’s licenses, which are issued by state agencies, not federal ones) and will broadly require trans people to use the sex they were assigned at birth on federal legal documentation.

While a marker on a passport may not seem like a big deal to someone who has never thought twice about theirs, having government identification that matches their identity can protect trans people from hostile or dangerous situations.

“We’ve experienced similar attacks against forms of identification here in Florida,” Maxx Fenning, the executive director of PRISM, a LGBTQ youth advocacy organisation in the state, told HuffPost.

Guidance issued last year by the Florida government prevents people from changing the gender marker on their driver’s license. There are a number of situations that require people to show their ID, Fenning said — like entering a bar, providing employment verification, renting an apartment or interacting with a traffic cop.

“Those are all friction points now for trans people, where they could be outed,” he explained. “Someone who’s presenting feminine or presenting female that has an ‘M’ male gender marker, on their ID — that’s essentially immediately outing them and potentially putting them in an unsafe situation.”

While these risks are real, Fenning also underscored that it’s important people not misinterpret or preemptively assume what these orders will and will not do, as this can exacerbate people’s fears and put vulnerable communities at even greater risk.

Why rhetoric matters

In addition to these logistical concerns, the language and actions of elected officials matter, and hostile policies can put trans people, and particularly trans youth, at a higher risk of depression and worse.

“We know that the passage of anti-LGBTQ laws at the state level can increase suicidality for young people, based upon a recent peer reviewed study in Nature that we just published,” Janson Wu, the vice president of advocacy and government affairs at the........

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