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“The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system,” reads one of President Donald J. Trump’s many day-one executive orders, an edict bearing the run-on title “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

By “sex,” of course, the president was not referring to human intimacy but rather to “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.” And the actual erasure he was launching was the elimination of transgender Americans from public participation, public service and public consciousness.

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Mr. Trump’s “Defending Women” order commanded the federal government to drop all references to gender identity in favor of enforcing the use of an individual’s biological sex at birth on official documents such as passports and personnel records. That change has already rippled across federal agencies with effects including,........

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