According to joint press releases by several outlets, more than 50 organizations representing “authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, distributors, and national and state advocacy nonprofits” have signed a formal joint letter expressing serious concerns over the Trump administration’s January 20th Executive Order 14168 and its potential creation of widespread censorship.
Executive Order: Binary Gender Is Established “At Conception”
According to the executive order, titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, gender identity is tied exclusively to the sex an individual is assigned at birth — also defined as cisgender — and can only be defined along the binary of “male” and “female.” It further defines any departure from this ideology as “an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts.”
The order also creates its own definition of “gender ideology,” which it then uses to ban the use of any discourse or self-identification involving non-binary or non-cisgender identity in federal settings, programs, or spaces:
‘Gender ideology’ replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true.
Executive Order 14168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government
Publishers, Organizations Respond to 14168: “[I]t Has No Place in a Free Society”
In the statement titled Statement on the Trump Administration’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order Targeting Transgender, Intersex, Nonbinary, and Gender-Nonconforming Americans, which can be viewed in its entirety on multiple platforms, including PEN America, the signees express concern over both the wide-reaching impacts of the order and its potential for sweeping censorship that would severely limit freedom of speech:
Among the many harms it causes, the order targeting transgender, intersex, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming Americans threatens unconstitutional censorship that could have a grave impact on literature for years to come. In dismissing trans, intersex, and nonbinary identities, the order blacklists LGBTQIA+ literature and invites the government to dictate the perspectives, beliefs, and identities that can exist in public forums receiving federal funding, amounting to financial coercion through the arbitrary withholding of funds.
This censorship may begin with LGBTQIA+ perspectives, but it will not end there: allowing the government to censor one group erodes the First Amendment rights of all Americans, creating a precedent for silencing dissenting voices.
Statement on the Trump Administration’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order Targeting Transgender, Intersex, Nonbinary, and Gender-Nonconforming Americans
The statement concludes with a call to action that urges the administration to rescind the order before its earliest implementation deadline of February 19, 2025, or else run the risk of “[f]inancially blacklisting trans, intersex, and non-binary perspectives [that] will rob us of a vital literature yet to be written while insulting the dignity of LGBTQIA+ people everywhere.”
This executive order is censorship, pure and simple, and it has no place in a free society. It must be rescinded or stayed as soon as possible […]
Statement on the Trump Administration’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order Targeting Transgender, Intersex, Nonbinary, and Gender-Nonconforming Americans
Signees of the joint letter include Big Five publisher Macmillan Children’s Publishing
Group, independent publishers Charlesbridge, Levine Querido, and Walker Books Group, and advocacy nonprofits We Need Diverse Books, EveryLibrary, and PEN America. A full list of all 53 signees can be found on the final pages of the statement.
As of publication, the Trump administration has not responded to the statement.
For more, check out Bookstr’s continuing coverage of the United States’ recent increase in book bans and literary censorship.
We’re with the banned. To see our recommendations of frequently banned and challenged books, check out our Bookshop bookshelf.
