In this essay, I will explain Executive Order 14168 (EO) and apply a “problem body” framework to the states’ characterization of trans women. Through the “’gender troubled’ problem body” framework, I will compare the British Colonial (BC) characterization of hijras and EO characterization of trans women.  Broadly, the relationship suggests that problem bodies are dangerous threats that the national population needs to be protected against; as a result, I propose that EO 14168 and British Colonial treatment of trans women and hijras are an example of problem bodies being “portrayed again and again in new iterations at various historical moments as ‘threats’ or ‘drains’” (1074). I will lay out how each states’ portrayal of problem bodies as threats engage with similar themes and argue that the context in which EO defines sex disproportionately incites trans panic against trans women.

“Section 1. Purpose” identifies that EO 14168 will define the “immutable biological category of sex” to “defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience.” To achieve this goal, EO will end all Federal funding of gender ideology (S2, S7), mandate the use of biological definitions of gender across government (S3, S7), and demand that “intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity” (S4). The order is clearly applicable to all trans people, but the described purposes, examples, and scenarios single out trans women. For example, Section 1 solely highlights women’s intimate spaces and women’s rights, Section 3 clarifies that “women are biologically distinct from men,” and Section 4 ensures “males are not detained in women’s prisons…” but not “vice versa.”[1] Through defining sex and gender through reproductive cells (S2), EO demands that all trans people are “something to be ‘fixed’ or something to be removed” (1072); however, since EO primarily uses arguments and justifications that center around trans women, it implies that trans women need surveillance and managing that trans men do not. To proceed with my argument, I will explain the “problem body” framework and how it relates to the BC characterization of hijras and EO characterization of trans people as threats.

Campbell addresses that the “body is a site of norm-building and a central location where National identity is reinforced” (1070). Therefore, “transgender and gender non-conforming people threaten our national norms as people who do not fit within the constraints of the gender binary” (1071) and are viewed as “’gender troubled’ problem bodies” (1077). The British colonials spread discourse that hijras were castrated males who threatened efforts against the global sex trade by engaging in prostitution and dressing and behaving like women. Although hijras did not necessarily identify as trans women, both hijras and trans women transgress gender divisions “simply by going about their daily lives” (7). Due to longstanding cultural norms and representations surrounding women, hijras and trans women are viewed as more “threat[ening] to dominant cultural ideals’” (1071) than trans men and are subject to hyper-visibility (1071) that trans men are not. Therefore, trans women are a more significant “object of fear and curiosity” (1072) which likely contributes to EO focusing on trans women. This state identification of problem bodies amidst the “circulation of norms” enforces an “aberrant” and “deviant” perception towards hijras and trans women in which states equate with the “threat of danger” (1073). As a result, hijras and trans women are “prescribed deviance [that] allows for the state to formally designate these groups as threats,” which results in efforts to demonize and remove these groups from public view (1074).

The demonization of hijras and trans women by the state involves themes of portraying their aberrant lifestyles as a threat to public safety and government validity. For example, BCs deeming hijras as prostitutes singles hijras out as sexually immoral threats to public safety, while the EO deeming trans women as invaders of intimate single-sex spaces (S1) singles out trans women as immoral threats to public safety. In addition, BCs and EO both suggest that hijras and trans women intend to overthrow the government. More specifically, EO displays language that conveys trans women as deliberately[2] invalidating laws/policies through “radical ideology,” which is comparable to how Judge Unwin “invented a story” claiming that there was an “immoral hijra underground” and “secret government” (4). In other words, EO conveys a more democratic perception of citizens coming together to undermine the government while BCs convey a more tyrannical perception by claiming hijras had a king. [3] In both cases, trans women and hijras are degraded and “treated as so morally severe—and politically dangerous…that nothing less than the total eradication of all hijras” (6) and trans women could address moral order.[4] Gill-Peterson argues that the BCs’ “compelling story” “incited trans panic” and became a “pretext for a statewide campaign to secure moral order by exterminating” hijras (4). Comparably, EO intends to exterminate trans women, providing further evidence that EO is simply a “new iteration” of BCs relationship with hijras and may provoke similar trans misogynistic behavior as the trans panic.

EO 14168 incites trans panic by singling out trans women as threats to public safety and government validity. The focus on women may seem insignificant, as EO will have negative impacts on all trans people; however, calling out trans women in a sex/gender-defining document will feed into the over policing and disproportionate discrimination that impacts trans women. Through EO focusing on trans women in examples of single-sex spaces and government policies, the state fosters trans misogyny by indicating that trans women are more deviant and threatening than trans men and require additional surveillance. This state focus empowers men and police officers to look for, attack, and trans feminize bodies, which Gill-Peterson argues is where individuals learned to wield trans panic too (8). As a result, EO securing truths about sex with a focus on trans women may threaten public safety and morale more than the mere existence of trans women.

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[1] EO also has structural elements that indicate focus on women: such as always addressing or defining women before men and using “vice versa” or parenthesis to declare that something applies to men.

[2] “Gain access” “efforts,” “depriving,” “ongoing and purposeful attack,” “invalidating,” “undermine.”

[3] Associating hijras and trans women with pressing issues like the global sex trade and protection of women’s rights along with the desire to undermine the government likely increases the threat perception.

[4] EO criminalized presence in public through emphasizing that “’gender identity’…cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex” (S2) and that “it is policy of U.S. to recognize two sexes, male and female” (S2). 

Sources:

Jules Gill-Peterson, “A Short History of Trans Misogyny”

Maya Campbell, “‘Perceived to be Deviant’: Social Norms, Social Change, and New York State’s ‘Walking While Trans’ Ban

EO 14168, January 30, 2025