“Improper Ideology”—Trump Demands Women’s History Museum Remove Trans People or Lose Funding

The American Women’s History Museum must remove trans people from its exhibits and programming, or lose its federal funding, Trump says.

Smithsonian Institution // Marelbu // Creative Commons

“Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” reads President Donald Trump’s March 27 executive order.

He then declared that the accomplishments of trans people, and trans women in particular, must be removed from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum because they constitute an “improper ideology.”

The order condemns a planned exhibit at the Museum that would feature trans athletes. Now, Vice President J.D. Vance, alongside members of the presidential cabinet and staff, will lead the way in a sweeping overhaul of Museum exhibits, programming and leadership by blocking funding unless the Museum promises it will “not recognize men as women in any respect.” The language is a thinly veiled directive to remove trans women from the museum entirely.

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a statement that the order was nothing less than “fascism” at work.

“Queer history is American history,” she said. “But instead of focusing on issues that are critical to the American people, the Trump Administration is hellbent on quashing any artistic expression or history that doesn’t fit their definition of ‘American.’ This is what fascism looks like.”

Trump also threatened to withdraw federal funding from any museum, monument or park that he determines has “ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.”

Earlier this year, protests erupted in New York City at the Stonewall National Monument, which falls under the National Parks Service, because it removed the word “transgender” from its webpage at the behest of Trump’s initial anti-trans executive order. It is unclear how this new order could impact Stonewall’s future as an institution, whose very premise is that of fighting for the rights of the LGBTQ community (or, as the website currently reads, the “LGB” community).

In a published statement, Alan Spears—a senior director at the National Parks Conservation Association, which is an independent advocacy group—denounced the measures as harmful and ahistorical.

“Truthful and factual accounting of history should not change, regardless of which political party is in power,” Spears said. “The president’s executive order could jeopardize the Park Service’s mission to protect and interpret American history.”

The March 27 executive order also called for a review of national monuments that have been modified or taken down since January 1, 2020, for potential reinstallation. The George Floyd uprising of that year saw the removal and destruction of many monuments that glorified historically racist and pro-slavery figures.

Meanwhile, in a troubling echo of Trump’s policies on trans people, the executive order condemns the Smithsonian for framing race as a “social construct” rather than what Trump thinks it is: a “biological reality.”

“Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn,” the order says, “not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.”