DANIEL:

Sam, the night Donald Trump was elected, what were you seeing and hearing from the trans and gender diverse community?

Audio excerpt — Crowd chanting:

“USA! USA! USA! USA!”

Audio excerpt — Trump:

“America's future will be bigger, better, bolder, richer, safer and stronger than it has ever been before. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you very much.”

[Crowd cheering]

SAM:

There was just absolute widespread panic. People were really worried about things like upcoming surgery appointments that they had being cancelled. People were worried that they weren't going to be able to get access to their hormones like testosterone or oestrogen. People were talking about moving to Canada, like, quite seriously. People were swapping information about where are safer countries for trans people to live. Yeah, it was really scary and I'd never seen anything like it.

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DANIEL:

As trans people in the United States hatch escape plans, Sam Elkin is preparing for what the Trump era will mean for trans people here in Australia.

Just this week, Queensland has announced children will be denied puberty blockers while the state government launches an investigation into gender-affirming hormones.

And some senior federal politicians have begun voicing their support for Trump’s tactics.

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James. This is 7am.

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper Sam Elkin on what’s behind Trump’s obsession with trans people and whether his anti-trans tactics will work here.

It’s Friday January 31.

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DANIEL:

Sam, thanks for speaking with me. We know Trump's been signing a hell of a lot of executive orders. Can you tell me about the ones that affect trans people?

SAM:

Yeah, well, within hours of taking office, he started signing these executive orders to curtail trans and gender diverse people's rights. So there was the first executive order that was called Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, which is a very cumbersome title.

DANIEL:

It’s a mouthful.

SAM:

Yes, it sure is.

Audio excerpt — Trump:

“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”

[Crowd cheers]

SAM:

Basically, that says that all US federal agencies have to focus on a very narrow, biologically contestable vision of sex as an immutable biological classification, as either male or female, which is determined at conception. Also, anybody who works for a federal department, they can only have their birth sex recognised in their identity documents and things like passports, visas and government records like that can only use a person's birth sex of male or female. So this executive order will, of course, require new legislation, but it's already having an impact on, you know, housing, health, education, every aspect of a person's life, this is going to impact.

DANIEL:

Can you tell me how that will work in practice?

SAM:

One thing that has happened is the Attorney-General has been directed to ensure that trans women can no longer be housed in women's prisons and to reverse policies that allow trans people to access the bathroom of their choice. There are policies designed to protect LGBTQ workers in the US at the moment from discrimination, they're going to be rescinded entirely. And teachers who make efforts to support their trans or non-binary students by discussing things like gender identity could be terminated from their employment just for talking to their students about these issues.

Gender affirming medical care to people under the age of 19 has been restricted.

Audio excerpt — News Host 1:

“The order states that the US will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist or support the so-called transition of a child from one sex to another. And it will vigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life altering procedures.”

SAM:

“And really concerningly, people detained in prisons and immigration detention centres will no longer have access to gender affirming treatment. And so for somebody who's in prison, there's nowhere else to go, right? You can't sort of rely on the community or use other services.

And in a really concerning sign for trans people's ability to travel in the US or around the world, last week the newly minted Secretary of State Marco Rubio has directed his agency to freeze passport applications that contain a request for an X gender marker or for a change of gender. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said US citizens will have to use their God given sex, which was decided at birth.

And there's been an executive order barring trans people from military service.

Audio excerpt — News Host 2:

“President Trump signed an executive order calling transgender people unfit to serve.”

Audio excerpt — News Host 3:

“One part says being transgender is, quote, ‘not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.’”

SAM:

So many people are members of the US military and, you know, for many people it provides a kind of lifeline to accessing education and health care and things like that. So this issue actually impacts a lot more people than you might expect.

But none of these has occurred in a vacuum. We're seeing anti-trans legislation and anti LGBTQ rights legislation going on all across the world. Ghana, Bulgaria, Georgia all introduced legislation in 2024, and of course in the UK, the use of puberty blockers has been banned for those under 18 at least until at least 2027. So social conservatives here in Australia will have no doubt been paying close attention to what's going on in the US.

DANIEL:

Coming up after the break, will Trump’s anti-trans tactics work here?

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DANIEL:

Sam, already we've seen some Trump style moves in Australian politics. How likely are we to see attacks on trans people's rights here in Australia?

SAM:

Yeah, we've already seen that this week. The Queensland Government has announced that it's pausing gender affirming treatment for people in the public system under 18 years of age. So young people, which is really, really concerning.

Audio excerpt — QLD Health Minister Tim Nicholls:

“As parents, as communities, as a state, we owe it to children to ensure that care is grounded on solid evidence and that we act in this contested area and this developing area with caution.”

SAM:

I read the other day that there's 491 people who were already on that waitlist. And so instead of them getting to the front of the line, they’re just no longer going to be able to have access to that. And gender affirming treatment for young people is so important because people not having access to that is going to cause immediate harm.

And data from the Trans Justice Project and the Victorian Pride Lobby has shown that anti-trans hate has increased over the last few years. And this, I think, is a direct result of the fact that the media spotlight is so often upon us. I think it's really likely that we're going to see a lot of vitriolic coverage about trans and gender diverse people in the lead up to the upcoming election.

DANIEL:

And if there is an uptick in vitriolic coverage, as you say, what do we know about the positions of the major parties and whether they'll buy into this?

SAM:

Yeah, well, last week prominent Nationals MPs Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan voiced their support for Donald Trump's moves to recognise only two sexes. And in a Sky News interview, Nationals Leader David Littleproud said he wants to stop trans women from participating in women's sport. So I think the Nationals have made their position clear on this. For the moment it seems that Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton doesn't appear to see explicit attacks on the trans community as being an election winner. In response to Littleproud comments, Dutton said that the Coalition had no plans to change our position in relation to that issue.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, I'm sure, is also keen to avoid discussing transgender issues.

Audio excerpt — Peter Stefanovic:

“The prime minister has confirmed a backdown on the controversy surrounding the census…”

Audio excerpt — News Host 4:

“The Albanese government quietly pulled the LGBTIQA+ census questions in an attempt to avoid what it said could be a divisive debate…”

SAM:

He was then forced to reverse his decision to remove gender and sexuality questions from the census. So he's made it pretty clear that he doesn't really want to touch LGBTIQA+ issues at all, and I'm sure he doesn't want to talk about them or be embroiled in a debate in the lead up to this election.

DANIEL:

In Australia, what are the rights that the Trans and gender diverse community are still trying to achieve?

SAM:

Yeah, well, we're obviously in a much better situation here in Australia than we are in the US at the moment. We've got, you know, some really important protections under the Sex Discrimination Act and its various state based equivalents. And you know, for that I'm really, really grateful. You know, in most states and territories now you can change your birth certificate without first undergoing sterilising surgery. And you can update your gender marker on your passport without having had a surgical intervention, which is really important. There's also stuff like conversion therapy to change or suppress a person’s sexuality or gender identity, that's been prohibited in some states and territories. But yeah, there's still so much that we need changed. Access to health care can be incredibly difficult for trans and gender diverse people of any age, but particularly young people, to access gender affirming health care in rural areas, regional areas and very much remote areas. So that's still something that we really, really need to change. And street harassment continues. Trans women and trans women of colour in particular are much more likely to be harassed, victims of assaults and so on. And this continues and is probably only going to continue when there's a vitriolic media debate about us.

And, you know, being somebody who is in the trans community, obviously, I know a lot of trans people, but I am aware that we form a very, very small minority, less than 1 percent of the Australian population. And the fact that there's just so many articles constantly about trans issues is disturbing.

DANIEL:

So Sam, like you said, Trans people are a very small proportion of the overall population. Why do you think there is such a focus, an obsession even, on your community from people like Donald Trump?

SAM:

Yeah, well, we're very much in the middle of a moral panic around this issue. And I don't think that Donald Trump necessarily cares about trans and gender diverse people either way. He's using us to divide and distract the broader US population. This is part of Trump's broader attack on what he calls the quote unquote “woke agenda”. But all of this is just a smokescreen to help Donald Trump to prosecute his agenda, which is to further cut living standards to ordinary people, engage in mass deportations, cut back the public service, and give massive tax breaks to the rich.

At the moment, we're up as the people being focussed upon to curtail our rights, but I'm sure we won't be the last. You know, whenever a tiny subsection of the population is being targeted, everybody's rights are up for grabs.

DANIEL:

Sam, thank you so much for your time.

SAM:

Thank you.

DANIEL:

You can read Sam Elkin’s reporting in tomorrow’s edition of The Saturday Paper.

Sam is a co-editor of ‘Nothing to Hide: Voices of Trans and Gender Diverse Australia’.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news,

There’s been widespread shock and outcry as Donald Trump signed an executive order to re-open Guantanamo Bay as a migrant detention centre.

The navy base, which became infamous during the so-called war on terror for torturing inmates held in indefinite detention, will be repurposed to hold up to 30,000 immigrants.

The President of Cuba is among the critics of the order, calling the move quote, “an act of brutality on an illegally occupied Cuban territory”.

And

ASIO says it will not lift the terror threat level following the discovery of a caravan filled with explosives on Sydney’s outskirts, alongside a list of Jewish targets.

It follows as both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns have condemned the discovery as an antisemitic terror plot. ASIO Director General Mike Burgess says the threat level, last raised in August last year, has unfortunately “evolved almost exactly as expected”.

7am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.

It’s made by Atticus Bastow, Cheyne Anderson, Chris Dengate, Erik Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah McVeigh, Travis Evans, Zoltan Fecso and me, Daniel James.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.

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