To the Editor:
Re “Pain Is the Point of Trump’s Transgender Policy,” by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 18):
For most of my life I feared what would happen if anyone knew that I experienced a full spectrum of both feminine and masculine expressions. The shame began when I was a small child and followed me throughout much of my life. Even so I did not grow up with a fear of my government. America was a work in progress.
I have seen rights gradually extended to women, racial minorities and sexual minorities, including trans and nonbinary people. However, today I find myself joining the rapidly growing ranks of innocent Americans who get up each morning fearing their own government.
By targeting trans and nonbinary people, our president seeks to secure unchecked power at the expense of the vulnerable and innocent. Scapegoating minorities is a tried and true model for dictators throughout history. Here President Trump joins the likes of Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban by manufacturing a perceived threat from an innocent minority, which will eventually justify restrictions on civil rights for everyone.
I have listened to his calls for a return to a time when there were only two genders. That was also a time when America freely and openly discriminated against women, people of color, Jews and others. The fact is there have never been just two genders. Many societies accepted us, and even those that tried to ban us recognized our existence in those very bans.
We will not disappear again into the shadows. We will resist, those who love us will resist, and those who are decent will resist. As long as we do so, the ideal that all Americans are created equal will not fade, that this country might endure and grow once again.
Mark Petersen
Park City, Utah
To the Editor:
Re “Trump’s Shameful Campaign Against Transgender Americans” (editorial, Feb. 16):
The Trump administration’s attacks on transgender and nonbinary individuals compromise our safety and attempt to strip us of our rights and our humanity. These policies aren’t just cruel — they are also deeply un-American.
But President Trump’s assault on the trans and nonbinary community goes beyond executive orders on prisons, identification documents and schools. His ongoing attacks on Medicaid put millions — including trans nonbinary individuals — at risk of losing critical care.
As a transgender woman, I know firsthand how difficult it is to access gender-affirming care. When I couldn’t obtain coverage, Medicaid became my lifeline. It allowed me to gain access to primary care, mental health care, hormone therapy and have surgery that aligned my body with my identity — an essential, life-changing moment of liberation and relief.
Medicaid isn’t just for the nonbinary community — it serves more than 70 million Americans, including adults and children with disabilities, low-income families, people with chronic conditions like diabetes and H.I.V. It is more than just insurance; it is a commitment to creating healthier communities across the country. Instead of gutting it, we must strengthen and expand it. Congress must act; too many lives depend on it.
R.A. Melendez
New York
To the Editor:
The official current policy of the United States government that there are only two genders — male and female based on either XX or XY genotype — is illiterate from the point of view of human biology. While most humans are born with either XX or XY chromosomes (determining female or male sex, respectively) some are not. There are multiple scientifically verified variations on those two genotypes that we know about, even as continued medical research promises to reveal more.
A piece of advice sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein, but that rings true for most scientists is appropriate here: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Let us keep this in mind as we navigate complicated sex and gender issues.
Leonid Poretsky
New York
The writer is the chief of endocrinology at Lenox Hill Hospital.
To the Editor:
Please don’t perpetuate the falsehood that objection to gender ideology is a right-wing position. Lifelong liberals like me object to biological males in women’s sports and prisons and gender treatment for children not because those are liberal ideas, but because they are not.
We who oppose gender ideology don’t object to feminism. Protecting women’s sports and Title IX, which were hard-won liberal victories, is not anti-feminist. We don’t object to gay rights; in fact, encouraging gender nonconforming and same-sex-attracted kids to believe they are really the opposite sex is the height of gender conformity and homophobia.
Opposing gender ideology is about protecting the vulnerable and standing up for fairness and justice, values that I have always taken pride in as a liberal Democrat. But the Democratic Party’s current positions on gender go against these values, and the party silences those of us who disagree as bigots. We are horrified that we are trapped in the disaster of a second Trump presidency because our party would not listen to us.
Erica Avery
Greenfield, Mass.
To the Editor:
Your editorial regarding the Trump-led Republicans’ campaign against transgender Americans leads me to ask a simple question: What part of “liberty” do they not understand?
Denying others, whether a tiny minority or not, the right to live as they choose reduces liberty to a mere slogan, because liberty must apply to everyone. It is, after all, unalienable.
I suppose that many would argue that free gender expression limits their own liberty. Yet liberty is not about one’s feelings, it is about one’s actions.
Those who are limiting the liberty of others should prove that their liberty is actually encumbered before denying others the right to live free.
Jonathan L. Gleit
Tarrytown, N.Y.
‘I Am So Sorry’
To the Editor:
Re “A Humiliating Month to Be an American,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, Feb. 20):
To the good people of Ukraine: I am sorry that we are deserting you. To the good people of Europe: I am sorry that you can no longer count on us to stand up against world tyrants.
To the good people who once benefited from programs that helped eradicate deadly diseases: I am sorry that the new policies will set your countries back years (if not decades).
To the good people the world over who thought they could count on a sane U.S. government to help keep the world a safe place: I am sorry that is no longer the case.
We Americans have a lot to be sorry for these days.
Right now, I am most concerned with the plight of the Ukrainians. You deserve so much more.
Miriam Mittenthal
Towson, Md.
Lying to Children
To the Editor:
Re “There’s One Lie I Will Never Tell My Children,” by Allison Sweet Grant (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 23):
I agree with not telling white lies to our kids when they’ll feel pain, causing a sense of adult betrayal.
My mother used to say, “This is going to hurt me more than you.” Really?
When I had my tonsils out at the age of 5, she promised to stay with me, yet I was whisked away behind closed doors, petrified and in tears. An unexpected ether mask was thrust over my face.
To this day, I fear any type of anesthesia. I’ve been more honest with my own daughter, and others should be too.
Candy Schulman
New York
