Out Leadership condemns the Trump administration’s effort to administratively and legally erase transgender people through a distorted interpretation of Title IX, as detailed in a Health & Human Services Administration memo reported on in the New York Times.
“Out Leadership and the world’s smartest businesses stand in solidarity with the 1.4 million Americans who identify as transgender,” said Todd Sears, founder and principal, Out Leadership. “The interpretation of Title IX that President Trump’s administration is proposing is irrational and inconsistent with extensive legal and administrative precedent. Furthermore, it’s a transparently cruel attempt to deny the humanity of transgender people, and it must not succeed.”
The New York Times reports that the memo specifies that under the new policy, government agencies would be required to “adopt a specific and strict definition of sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with,” and that “any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified by genetic testing.”
“If such a definition of sex is adopted, it would place the government fundamentally out of step with corporate America, which has steadily moved over the last several decades to build and expand inclusion for transgender people,” Sears continued. “Two thirds of the Fortune 500 prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and more are doing so every year.”
“During the 2016 campaign, President Trump pledged to be a ‘friend’ to the LGBT+ community, but his administration has consistently attacked our civil rights. Still, the business community continues to fill the leadership vacuum created by this administration, and stands as a backstop when it comes to inclusion broadly. We call for the Trump administration to reject this policy, and for businesses who oppose it to make their voices heard.”