The President is female, the Supreme Court is female, we are all female

The President is female, the Supreme Court is female, we are all femaleDonald Trump’s order recognising only two sexes exposes an existential discomfort over gender identity, and a fear about being vulnerable that manifests not just in gender policy but in a broader resistance to addressing vulnerabilities in modern societyUpon taking office, President Trump signed an executive order mandating that the US government recognise only two sexes: Male and female. The order stated its intent to “defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognise women as biologically female, and men as biologically male.” It further asserted that choosing a gender identity different from one’s assigned sex at birth “does not provide a meaningful basis for identification.”The order also rescinded several initiatives introduced during former President Joe Biden’s administration, including the “White House Toolkit on Transgender Equality”, “Supporting Transgender Youth in School”, and “Confronting Anti-LGBTQI+ Harassment in Schools: A Resource for Students and Families”. These actions represent a stark shift in federal policy, prioritising biological definitions over gender identity. At the same time, they underscore a deeper divide in public discourse — a growing inability to understand and empathise with perspectives that challenge traditional notions of gender.

In recent decades, gender has increasingly been viewed as both universal and autonomous. It is universal in that gender seems to appear in all societies, spanning cultures and historical periods. Simultaneously, it is seen as autonomous, existing in a realm of individual choice, with an expanding vocabulary of identities that often seem disconnected from other aspects of social life. However, this understanding has sparked confusion and discomfort for many.

In gender sensitisation workshops I have conducted, participants often admit they struggle to grasp concepts like gender identity. “How can gender be different from sex?” they ask. Some express outright hostility, openly berating transgender individuals or dismissing same-sex attraction as unnatural. Is this resistance rooted in ignorance, a lack of empathy, or something deeper? Perhaps it reflects an existential discomfort with the very idea of gender.The American critic Andrea Long Chu explores this discomfort in her book Females (Verso, 2019). She declares provocatively that “everyone is female, and everyone hates it.” Even women hate being female as much as anybody else, because to be “female” is a psychic condition “in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another”. This suggests that being female is a shared experience of vulnerability for all humans, and we try to constantly protect ourselves from it. When she writes, “The 1 per cent is 100 per cent female. The entire Supreme Court is female. The entire United States Senate is female. The president is, obviously, a female,” she is implying that the President and his followers are so unreasonably cruel to women, queer folks and trans persons because we are all, in some way, too much female — and that terrifies us.

Counterintuitively, the condition of being female feels so uncomfortable, that it blocks all of us from extending consideration to the desires of others. When we feel vulnerable and unable to confront or acknowledge our fears, our responses often become rigid and harsh.

This fear manifests not just in gender policy but in a broader resistance to addressing vulnerabilities in modern society, including environmental degradation, inequality, and systemic discrimination in citizenship. Policies that roll back protections for marginalised groups are part of a larger trend — one that resists the open-ended, empathetic approach needed to address complex social issues. Resistance to these policies is visible through court challenges, op-eds, and activism. However, we cannot always expect resistance and activism, so prevalent in the 20th century, to come consistently from those most aggrieved. To endure the fury of the state is exhausting and fear-inducing.