Listen to thisAs we enter the third month of 2025, life for young people in the United States is becoming increasingly dangerous and difficult. This is particularly true for BIPOC youth, immigrants/refugee youth, LGBTQ young people, women and girls, and those living under conditions of economic precarity. The incoming federal administration and several similar governmental bodies in states across the country have taken positions, passed legislation, and issued directives that impact on the lives of young people economically and existentially within the families, communities, schools, and social service programs where their lives are centered.
There have been attacks on fundamental human rights and assaults on identity that can only be described as the attempted social and cultural erasure of entire groups of people. The adults that support marginalized young people have also been derogatorily described by the incoming president and those who work for him as enemies of society. Programs to advance equity and social justice for those most marginalized and disenfranchised are being systematically dismantled at all levels of government, education, and social services. Universities, such as the one where I teach, have been told that we cannot teach any curriculum related to race, gender, or sexuality or risk losing federal funding. If this trend continues the ability of CYC to provide even the most minimal level of care for those we have traditionally served in the U.S. will be severely compromised.
To be specific, there has been an executive order that specifies that as far as the United State government is concerned there are only two genders, male and female. Further, that passports must now reflect the birth gender of the holder. Of course, this implies the legal erasure of anyone who does not identify with this regressive and scientifically debunked definition of gender as a binary.
This has immense implications for the safety of non-binary individuals within the U.S. For example, based on this federal erasure of non-binary people, the bureau of prisons is planning to move transgender inmates out of prisons that align with their gender identity. Instead, they will be housed according to the sex they were assigned at birth. This would mean that transgendered women would be moved to men’s facilities. These moves will be made regardless of whether the inmates have received gender transition surgery of any kind. Having worked in a men’s correctional facility at a time before trans inmates had any kinds of protections, I can attest to how profoundly dangerous this kind of policy is. There will be sexual and physical assaults, suicides, and murders if this policy is followed through. Fortunately, there has been a push back by the courts and the situation is currently in limbo. But the threat of this kind of policy remains a very real possibility.
In a similar vein, there has been an executive order to ban transgendered women from participating in women’s sports at all levels. There are serious questions to whether such an order from the president has any binding force. But the discourse of exclusion is a powerful force in how transgendered women are perceived and how they perceive themselves. The science here is very clear. There has yet to be a study that demonstrates that transgendered women have any advantage in competitive sports. But the ongoing onslaught of misinformation on this issue has led to not only this latest federal initiative, but also major sports organizations, school boards, and local communities barring transgendered women from participation.
There has also been legislation and executive orders restricting gender affirming care for young people who are in the process of transitioning. Once again, the scientific/’medical community in the United States overwhelmingly supports the use of gender affirming care for young people who are transitioning. In addition, state and local legislators and school boards across the country have denied the right of trans young people to use the names of their choosing, insisting instead that they use the names found on their birth certificate. Finally, there has also been a resurgence in bathroom bills, or legislation that restricts the use of bathrooms by binary gender and sex at birth.
This patriarchal erasure has extended to girls and women as well. The title of the executive order that details the attack on non-gender binary people is entitled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The idea that women are in need of protection by a government headed by a president who has been convicted of sexual assault is stunningly appalling on its face. But, leaving aside the stunning hypocrisy, it is impossible to ignore the reification of the long-standing patriarchal discourse that portrays women as weak, vulnerable and intellectually in need of protection by their male counterparts.
In this discourse, women have apparently lost their rational faculties and have been fooled into believing in an ideology from which they must be protected at all costs. Big Papa government must put its foot down and stop this dangerous and perverse set of beliefs. Order must be restored and women put in their rightful place as recipients of the truth, so as to not have their fragile capacity for thought and reason corrupted by extreme ideologies that would give them the impression, they could have a voice in identifying themselves.
Instead, they must be reminded of who they really are within the binary of male and female. This discourse is another form of erasure for women who wish to have the right and capacity to describe their own bodies and their own experiential understanding of their sex and gender. The instantiation of gender norms by the state can’t help but have a chilling effect on the young women and girls we encounter in our work as CYC professionals.
Another form of erasure that is being promoted by the current U.S. administration is directed at any organization that has promoted or engaged with initiatives focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). These efforts have been demonized as inherently discriminatory forms of reverse racism that have been disadvantaging anyone who is white, heterosexual, able bodied, and cis-gendered. Inherent in the discourse surrounding this repudiation of DEI is the idea that anyone non-white who has been successful has only been successful because they have been given an unfair advantage by DEI programs and hiring initiatives. Implicit (and sometimes explicit) is the belief that if the U.S. establishes a system of merit rather than equity, white people will take their rightful place in the workplace and government.
This has led to some extreme forms of erasure including guidelines for federal research grants that have lists of words related to gender, race, disability, or sexuality that would be grounds for dismissing grant applications.
The anti-DEI initiatives have also led to schools, at all levels, being required to eliminate all DEI initiatives and examine their curriculum for any reference to race, gender, or sexuality and expunge it or lose federal funding. This has resulted in several school districts and individual teachers removing reference to Black History month or Women’s history month and so on. Similarly, the U.S Defense Department Intelligence Agency has paused any observance of Martin Luther Kings Day, Pride Month, Holocaust Days of Remembrance and other like events in response to the President’s drive to eliminate DEI in any form.
The force of this kind of thinly veiled white supremacist discourse in the U.S., with its horrific legacy of enslavement and land theft is horrific. The reactions of schools and universities has been mixed with some acceding and canceling or modifying DEI programs and content, while others vow to resist. Once again however, it can’t be overstated how devasting such a messaging from the federal government is for marginalized and disenfranchised communities and the young people who live in them. The idea that equity and inclusion are now dirty words is demoralizing at best. The implications for federal and state funding for programs that serve these communities are chilling.
Finally, one of the most pernicious sets of policy initiatives emerging in the past couple of months and during the previous election cycle has been those focused on immigration, The commitment to mass deportation of undocumented refugees and migrants has had a chilling effect on those communities. The ongoing demonization of migrants as dangerous and violent criminals has been unconscionable. I can see the effects with my students as they react to threats of deportation. In that regard, I recently felt compelled to post an advisory in all my classes about what would happen if an Immigration Officer were to enter my classroom. Put simply, under current law there is actually nothing I can do. In the U.S. universities are no longer sanctuary spaces. Following the advisory, I heard from students thanking me and telling me about how they now carry their papers with them everywhere they go. I have also heard from another faculty member of a graduate student who left their program for fear of being identified as undocumented and deported.
As CYC workers, perhaps the action that may hit closest to home has been President Trump’s firing and then re-instatement of all the attorneys providing free legal counsel to unaccompanied minors. The back and forth is deeply unsettling for young people and their advocates and may not bode well for the future of such counsel. As Shaina Aber, of the Acacia Center for Justice, who administers the free legal counsel program stated, “The administration’s decision to suspend this program undermines due process, disproportionately impacts vulnerable children, and puts children who have already experienced severe trauma at risk for further harm or exploitation.” Attacks on programs like this should act as an early warning for the rest of our programming. If this non-profit program can be put at risk on a moment’s notice, so can any other program that receives federal funding.
While my focus has been the U.S., I would remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that these trends are global and that the blueprint for what is happening in the U.S. has already been more completely enacted in countries such as Hungary. The rise of white supremacy and neo-colonialism is on the rise, and it will impact the young people we serve and the work we are attempting to do. If there was ever a time for our field to mobilize a political response to what is happening in the world today, this would be the moment. I hope we can see that and begin the process of mounting a response before it gets really and truly dark for all of us.
