U.S President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday pledged to “stop the transgender lunacy” on day one of his presidency, as Republicans set to control both chambers of Congress and the White House — continue to advance their anti-LGBTQ policy.
“There will only be male and female in America. I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools,” the president-elect said at the AmericaFest conference for young conservatives in Phoenix, Arizona.
He also vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports,” adding that “it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
Transgender issues have engrossed US politics in recent years, as Democratic and Republican-controlled states have moved in opposite directions on policy such as medical treatment and what books on the topic are allowed in public or school libraries.
Last week, when the US Congress approved its annual defense budget, it included a provision to block funding of some gender-affirming care for the transgender children of service members.
In his speech on Sunday, December 23, Trump made expansive promises for his second term and painted a dark picture of the four years preceding it, under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“On January 20, the United States will turn the page forever on four long, horrible years of failure, incompetence, national decline, and we will inaugurate a new era of peace, prosperity and national greatness,” Trump said, referring to his swearing-in.
“I will end the war in Ukraine. I will stop the chaos in the Middle East, and I will prevent, I promise, World War III.”
“I can proudly proclaim,” he said, “that the golden age of America is upon us.”
