TRANSGENDER EDICT PART OF TRUMP’S PROMISED DICTATORIAL STYLE

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

 “TRANSGENDER EDICT PART OF TRUMP’S PROMISED DICTATORIAL STYLE”

 

The news has been bleak for weeks for teenagers convinced they were born in the wrong style of body, children better known as “transgender.”

 

Because of a president untrained in anything medical or psychological, but expert in manipulating public emotions, many of them will be denied previously available care for the foreseeable future.

 

This began as part of what President Trump promised while a candidate, being a “dictator on Day 1.” He never promised to cease acting that way after Day 1, and has not.

 

Trump issued a blizzard of executive orders immediately after his inauguration, a tide that has not abated much. His operatives, led by entrepreneur Elon Musk and a cadre of early-20s computer programmers at the quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency, quickly accessed large quantities of previously private information on everything from foreign aid to student loans and Medicare payments – and showed few signs of stopping even when so ordered by courts.

 

 

This is enabled by usually sycophantic, intimidated, but tiny Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, where virtually no Republican protests any Trump move.

 

One illustration is what’s happening to transgender youth – massive uncertainty. Already controversial and never available in all states, gender affirming treatments and surgeries suddenly became harder to get in states like California, New York and Virginia because of a first-day Trump edict.

 

Trump ordered such treatments stopped, saying no young person’s feelings about being in a type of body unmatched to their nature can be valid. He has called this type of care “chemical and surgical mutilation.” One of his first orders halted federal payments for such treatments while the rules are rewritten.

 

Almost immediately, some major hospitals shut down gender care programs. They feared not getting paid for their work and also the possibility that once rules are redone, Trump-appointed officials might try to claw money back from them. After a few court actions, some programs tentatively restarted.

 

In California, the most notable stoppage came at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, the state’s largest medical facility for juveniles, which operates a Center for Transyouth Health. After Trump’s order, the hospital “paused” starts of hormonal care for transgender patients under 19. The facility also said it would continue an “existing pause” on gender-altering surgery for minors. The surgical ban continues, but other treatments have resumed.

 

The original decision was cheered by longtime anti-transgender organizations like the California Family Council, while LGBTQ+ groups called it “alarming.”

 

Hospitals in other states made similar moves, including the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.; Denver Health in Colorado, and NYU Langone Health in New York, among others.

 

These changes potentially affected hundreds of young people and might be illegal, say California Attorney General Rob Bonta and several other state attorneys general.

 

This is only one area where the often inexpert Trump has spoken and acted on presumptions, not facts. Another example: when visiting California wildfire areas, he demanded deliveries of “more beautiful, delicious Pacific Northwest water” to this state. Of course, California has never received water from the Northwest, nor is there now any way to deliver it. Trump also demanded the Army Corps of Engineers suddenly deliver thousands of acre feet of water from behind dams feeding the federal Central Valley Project.

 

When some of that water reached San Joaquin Valley farms in late January, it was unusable because of the already wet season. Most flowed into underground aquifers. No one knows yet if this will cause water shortages later, in hot weather. None reached any part of Los Angeles, as no means exists to bring Central Valley Project water to Southern California.

 

Trump’s vice president then raised the possibility of outright defiance if any court orders a stop when Trump acts illegally on uninformed presumptions rather than real facts and needs.

 

Said JD Vance on the X social media outlet, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

 

Trump and his allies have been fine with the courts when they agree with rulings, but no one knows if they will try to ignore future decisions they don’t like.

 

The entire area remains far from settled.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net