The administration of US President Donald Trump is considering a proposal to narrowly define gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by birth genitalia, The New York Times reports.
According to a memo obtained by The Times, the Department of Health and Human Services is leading the effort to establish a legal definition of sex under federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in government-funded education programs.
It is the latest effort by the Trump administration to chip away at protections for the LGBTQ community.
The department’s proposed definition of gender would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times.
“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring, The Times says.
“The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
— AFP
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