feature image photo by Tasos Katopodis / Stringer via Getty Images

In yet another attempt by the Trump administration to sow absolute chaos and disorder across every agency in the U.S. government, he signed an Executive Order aimed at preventing faculty and staff in the nation’s public schools from providing the education and care their students deserve.

This executive order, Ending Radical Indoctrination in K – 12 Schooling, takes its cues from state laws like Florida’s Stop WOKE Act by asserting that educators and administrators in public schools are doing everything they can to turn their students into trans communists who want to dismantle the U.S. entirely. While some educators out there might be doing their best to make the second part of that description actually come true, the Executive Order essentially parrots the accusations that many Conservative lawmakers have been hurling at the public school system over the last few years. As with the other executive orders aimed at trans youth, this one is disguised by the cloak of “helping kids” even though it is actively threatening to take away their education and their ability to be themselves and feel comfortable at school.

Although this Executive Order is horrific for marginalized students and their allies in its own right, it was signed in the same sitting with an Executive Order focused on expanding parents’ access to private school vouchers, which do not serve low-income students and are disastrous for public education. Taking these two Executive Orders together, it becomes more obvious than ever that part of the aim of these Executive Orders is to create policy that would effectively defund and destroy the public school system in the U.S., which has been a goal of the far-right for several years now.

In the meantime though, should the Executive Order become policy somehow, it threatens to erase the struggles of marginalized people from our students’ education and to perpetually put young trans people in harm’s way by forcing the educators and administrators, as well as their peers, to ignore their identities altogether.

What Does Trump’s Indoctrination Executive Order Say?

You guessed it…more bullshit written by a bunch of people who want the masses to be uneducated, angry, starving, and desperate so they can swoop in, “save” the day, and continue ruling through violent coercion. But fine, let’s go through what this piece of shit document actually says.

According to the Executive Order, it is designed to “prohibit federal funding of the indoctrination of children which includes radical gender ideology and critical race theory in the classroom.”

The order alleges that public schools have been “indoctrinating” youth with “radical, anti-American ideologies” while attempting to limit the power that students’ parents have in fighting against these “ideologies.” Going even further, it alleges that students have basically been tricked by the educators and administrators working at public schools into believing they’re trans when they are not. The order claims that “These practices not only erode critical thinking but also sow division, confusion, and distrust, which undermine the very foundations of personal identity and family unity.”

These claims alone are enough to write off this absolutely garbage document, but there is, of course, much more.

The order defines “Discriminatory equity ideology” as any teaching that attempts to tell the truth about the founding of the U.S., the inequities present within our systems, and the problems inherent with being a settler-colonial society founded on genocide and chattel slavery. In this definition, it says that “Discriminatory equity ideology” teaches students to understand that certain members of society have more privilege than others and that one group of people is responsible for the oppression of another, which takes away from the “fact” that the U.S. is a meritocracy based in the virtues of “excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness.” Furthermore, the order calls for institutionalization of a “Patriotic Education,” which by their definition, is the perpetuation of every single lie you could possibly think of when it comes to American history, the U.S.’s contributions to global society, and the U.S.’s place in the world as we know it right now. In order to push this “Patriotic Education” forward, the Executive Order also reestablishes Trump’s 1776 Commission to produce curriculum, lessons, and learning opportunities that perpetuate the lies above.

Finally (and perhaps, most devastatingly), the order takes direct aim at young trans people in public schools by instituting a definition of “social transition” as including any intervention created to keep young trans people safe in their schools. The order defines this as the “process of adopting a ‘gender identity’ or ‘gender marker’ that differs from a person’s sex. This process can include psychological or psychiatric counseling or treatment by a school counselor or other provider; modifying a person’s name or pronouns; calling a child ‘nonbinary’; use of intimate facilities and accommodations such as bathrooms or locker rooms specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex; and participating in school athletic competitions or other extracurricular activities specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex.”

In essence, it calls for public school educators and administrators to further put the lives of trans kids in danger by refusing to provide them with the treatment, services, and basic respect necessary to help them navigate and survive their adolescence.

In terms of actionable resolutions in the order, it calls on the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Attorney General to produce an “Ending Indoctrination Strategy” to the president within the next 90 days. The strategy/plan should address how the federal government can continue fucking over public schools by removing their funding for the daily operations of the schools, the activities the schools host or sponsor, teacher education and training, and teacher certification if these schools do not drop their supposed lessons in “Discriminatory equity ideology,” adopt the tenants of a “Patriotic Education” as put forth by the administration, and stop supporting the “social transition” of their trans students.

Disturbingly, this administration and their party’s obsession with trying to make life completely unlivable to young trans people and the people who support them goes even further than that by pushing districts and school employees to force students to detransition in school. The order urges the Attorney General to work with State Attorneys General and local district attorneys to take legal action against faculty and staff members at public schools who “aid” in the “social transition” of trans students in their care. The order encourages the various attorneys’ offices to “enforce the law and file appropriate actions” against district and school employees but doesn’t define what those actions could be. Because those actions aren’t specifically defined, it seems that any policy that arises from this will mainly be used to intimidate and torment the people who work closely with trans kids in order to preemptively stop young trans people from transitioning in the first place.

Is Trump’s Indoctrination Executive Order Legal?

I mean, does it sound legal to you? Good, because it’s not!

Many Constitutional rights are being attacked here. Most famously, the First Amendment and our right to free speech, but also our right to protection under the law as granted by the Fourteenth Amendment. Of course, like many of the other Executive Orders signed so far by Trump, this one will also face legal pushback through the courts (and possibly Congress).

In a statement written by Nicholas Hite at Lambda Legal, Hite calls the Executive Order “lawless” and writes: “Bans on using the correct restrooms threaten the safety and health of transgender and nonbinary youth. Denying the opportunity to participate in school sports programs with their classmates deprives them of the many opportunities and developmental benefits all agree come from joining in team sports. And compelling teachers to tell parents about a student’s in-school request that a chosen name or pronoun be used —contrary to the student’s wishes—can expose the student to violence in the home, as well as violating both the student’s independent rights and teachers’ freedom of speech and professional duties of care to their students.”

If its fate is anything akin to Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, it’ll be blocked swiftly on the simple basis of being totally unconstitutional.

Although Executive Orders aren’t laws, we know they still strike fear into the hearts of people who are just trying to keep their heads above water. Like so many other things, early compliance with this order will inevitably happen (in addition to straightforward agreement with it), and that means the protection of trans kids in public schools is currently at risk as you’re reading this.

But if I can just say one thing as an educator in Florida and therefore a person who lived through attempts at creating this kind of legislation on the state level: No one in their right mind should be complying with this order at any point in time, but especially at this point when it isn’t even a real policy. I don’t care how many parents blow up the school’s voicemail or your teacher’s email inbox. Complying early with something like this will create ineradicable damage in the lives of the young people we should be protecting at all costs. Don’t do it. And don’t let anyone bully you into doing it, either.

The anti-trans and “anti-woke” attacks don’t seem to be letting up any time soon, and I’m sure we can anticipate that the administration will continue taking aim at trans people, undocumented people, and more of the most vulnerable marginalized groups in the country. Although some policy and laws are sure to come out of this grotesque crusade on the part of the far-right, we do not have to give in to them by following along or resigning ourselves to defeat. There is still time to fight against their intentions, organize with the people in your community, and come up with plans to protect each other when and if you truly need to. A law that threatens the lives and livelihoods of the people we see every day — especially the young people we see every day — is meant to be broken as often as necessary. And we should be preparing ourselves to do so in whatever ways we might have to.

Read more of Autostraddle’s recent political coverage:

• What will Trump’s executive orders actually do?
• Debunking every part of Trump’s gender-affirming care executive order.
• Trump’s attacks on gender-affirming care for trans youth will be challenged in the courts.
• How can you stay organized and prepared when going through the hellish process of updating your documents as a trans person right now?
• Why does Trump want to remove trans people from the military?

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