Top US companies stand up to oppose Trump effort to roll back trans rights

Dominic Rushe in New York
Updated

Firms including Apple, Amazon and JP Morgan sign letter of support after reports Trump wants to limit definition of gender

The letter reads: ‘We oppose any administrative and legislative efforts to erase transgender protections through reinterpretation of existing laws and regulations.’
The letter reads: ‘We oppose any administrative and legislative efforts to erase transgender protections through reinterpretation of existing laws and regulations.’ Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Some of America’s largest companies including Apple, Amazon, Bank of America and JP Morgan have published a letter supporting legal protection for transgender people following reports the Trump administration is considering limiting its definition of gender.

Fifty companies, which employ 4.8 million people between them, signed the statement after the White House was revealed to be considering narrowing gender definitions to “immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth”, according to a department of health memo obtained by the New York Times.

An estimated 1.4 million Americans identify as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth and any such legislation could jeopardize their legal protections.

“We oppose any administrative and legislative efforts to erase transgender protections through reinterpretation of existing laws and regulations. We also fundamentally oppose any policy or regulation that violates the privacy rights of those that identify as transgender, gender non-binary, or intersex,” the letter reads.

“In the last two decades, dozens of federal courts have affirmed the rights and identities of transgender people. Cognizant of growing medical and scientific consensus, courts have recognized that policies that force people into a binary gender definition determined by birth anatomy fail to reflect the complex realities of gender identity and human biology.”

The letter follows a campaign by leading companies including Bank of America which challenged North Carolina’s attempts to impose legislation that would have mandated transgender people could only use the bathrooms assigned to the sex assigned on their birth records.

The new letter was signed by a host of tech companies, including Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter, as well as Coca-Cola, Citi and Pepsi.

“Transgender people are our beloved family members and friends, and our valued team members,” it said. “What harms transgender people harms our companies.”