The Trump administration recently announced the federal government will only recognize two genders – male and female. What does this mean for people who identify as something else? New York Attorney General Letitia James says the state will continue to provide gender-affirming care. 

“There’s a fascinating 'Ted Talk' done by Emily Quinn. Emily opens her 'Ted Talk' with she has testicles. She is an intersex person, which means she is both sex. She is biologically both male and female. She is a woman who has male external genitalia. She grew breasts at puberty, she is both. What does she become?” said Jackie Pilon, a representative with LGBTQ Syracuse.

She said there are many intersex people who don’t identify as solely male or female.

A review published in the "American Journal of Human Biology" estimates that there are 5.6 million intersex people in the United States. 

“When you are intersex, you are biologically representative of both what are considered male and female traits. Within the body genetically, parts seen, labs, everything, you are both,” said Pilon.

Now that Trump has made the federal rule, Pilon says she fears for those who have benefited from gender-affirming care.

“It’s a fear that these children, young adults, middle-aged adults and seniors, this encompasses all of our population, are going to lose that care if some of the rhetoric is taken,” said Pilon. 

Pilon said gender-affirming care, which is a range of medical, social and psychological interventions designed to support and affirm an individual's gender identity when it differs from the gender they were assigned at birth, has helped address mental health issues among transgender people.

According to the Trevor Project, its recent 2024 study shows that 39% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the last year and 12% actually attempted suicide. The study also showed 54% of transgender and nonbinary young people found their school to be gender-affirming, and that group reported lower rates of attempting suicide.

“Those suicide rates are coming down, especially in area that have open access to gender-affirming care. Those are pieces of our future that are not dying because they’re not allowed to be themselves,” said Pilon. 

The Trump administration says the goal of the executive order is to protect women-only spaces like restrooms, prisons and rape shelters. The order also cuts federal support for gender transitions for people under the age of 19.

“The biggest problem that I see is that when this rhetoric is going about transgender is nonsense, what you’re saying is a person knowing who they are is nonsense. Who better to tell you who I am than me?” said Pilon.