United States Representative Sarah McBride has pointed out a fatal flaw in President Donald Trump’s executive orders, in particular, an anti-trans measure stating that the US recognises only two sexes.

President Trump delivered a series of executive orders after being sworn into office, one of which declared that the US government will recognise “only two genders, male and female” on government-issued identification.

More specifically, the order defines someone female as “a person belonging, at conception to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,” whilst someone male is a “person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell”. 

But anyone with a background in biology will know that all human embryos follow a “female” developmental path until the activation of the SRY gene several weeks after conception, which sparks sexual differentiation. 

Embryos with an XY genotype will develop biologically male traits linked to the Y chromosome at around six weeks. Before that point, human embryos only have biologically female traits linked to the X chromosome. In fact, genitalia at conception is “phenotypically female”, as the National Library of Medicine notes. 

McBride, who is the first out trans congresswoman, quipped to The Independent that Trump “just declared everyone a woman from conception based on the language of the executive order”. 

During his inaugural address on Monday (20 January), Trump said there were only two genders, “male and female”, adding that he will end “the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life”.

Among the other executive orders were moves to scrap diversity, equity and inclusion policies, ending birth-right citizenship (which guarantees citizenship to anyone born on US soil), withdrawing the country from the World Health Organization, and pardons for those convicted of crimes surrounding events on 6 January 2021.

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