This essay offers a critique of the Trump administration’s effort to ground its hostility toward gender-affirming care in science. The aim of this critique will be simple: to show precisely how and why the administration’s effort has failed. To most readers, the fact of such failure will hardly be surprising. To some, it may even seem pointless or counterproductive to devote critical attention to what is, after all, a post-hoc and bad-faith attempt at justification. Plainly, the administration’s desire to abolish gender-affirming care (and indeed, trans existence) was present before any scientific reason was sought for it, and it will remain even if the now-alleged scientific basis for it crumbles.
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