Male and female created He them

Last week, flanked by a small army of girls and young women, President Trump energetically signed an executive order entitled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” That event was political stagecraft at its most brilliant, with the young girls filling the screen and watching appreciatively as President Trump signed the document. But there was far more to the picture and the action. This executive order was a great win for female athletes, to be sure, but it was also an act of courage and clarity.

The clarity comes as a necessary extension of Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” signed by the president on Inauguration Day. In his inaugural address, President Trump had declared: “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.” The astounding thing is that such a declaration was necessary, but it is profoundly necessary.

In the earlier executive order, President Trump set the groundwork for enforcing his affirmation of male and female as the only two genders recognized by the federal government and as biological categories fixed at fertilization. That order went on to define male as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell,” and a female as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.” That’s right. In official language, the president, newly inaugurated to his second term, signed a document affirming that males are persons of the sex that produces sperm and females are persons of the sex that produces eggs.

Just imagine explaining the need for this policy to George Washington, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or to Gerald Ford for that matter.

The “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order is itself clear. No boys in girls’ sports and no men in women’s sports. As the order specifies: “It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competition in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” The government will enforce the policy on girls’ and women’s athletic competition wherever federal funding or policy applies, with particular reference to educational institutions.

Amazingly enough, the NCAA got right in line, issuing an order of its own that now enforces the same policy through all its sports and the policy applies to all member institutions. Charlie Baker, the former Massachusetts governor who now leads the NCAA, offered a succinct explanation. “We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions,” he said. He continued: “To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.” Yes, it does.

The courage is demonstrated in two dimensions. First, in the fact that President Trump signed it. Second, in the fact that he did it right in the face of the moral revolutionaries who dare to argue that all right-minded people should share in the delusion that a boy can be a girl and a girl can be a boy—that a male can be declared a female and a female can be declared a male. It is insanity, but it is an insanity driven with energy and coercive policies through political activism and the near-total capture of the American medical establishment (which just happens to be arguing for a vast new medical and surgical market that would represent billions of dollars in income). Medical authorities in Britain have regained sanity on the issue, and the Americans will probably follow, but only after inflicting untold harm and misery on their confused patients.

Put directly, President Trump has signed these executive orders in the face of the moral revolutionaries and the cultural elites. At the same time, the vast majority of Americans understand the issue pretty clearly. Many of those who have caved to activism by the lesbian, gay, and bisexual movement get really squishy on the transgender issue, especially when it comes to children, young people, and female sports.

There is a big lesson here. The transgender revolution represents a direct subversion of creation order. President Trump knows that his orders will likely end up in court, and he seems to relish the possibility. He could have bought off his base with a policy that just pushed a bit against the activism. Let’s be honest. A more traditional Republican would have offered lip service and lit a candle. President Trump’s executive orders, thanks be to God, represent a blowtorch directed at the false gender ideologies. Those girls who surrounded President Trump as he signed the order were thankful, and so am I. That appreciation is shared by all who love truth, and who believe that all genuine compassion begins with truth.