The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security, named after Holocaust survivor Raphael Lemkin, who invented the term “genocide” and was instrumental in creating the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (which the U.S. has never signed onto), was formed to “connect the global grassroots with the tools of genocide prevention.” Moving beyond the traditional notion of genocide as an attempt to extinguish a population by killing off its members, the Lemkin Institute identifies additional patterns of genocide, including the act of actions to eradicate a group’s identity as a form of genocide. The Lemkin Institute issues red flag alerts to call attention to conditions in countries that may foreshadow genocide, including revoking and denying group identity.  

Since 2023, the Institute has issued three red flag alerts, warning of systematic anti-transgender actions in the U.S. posing a genocidal threat to transgender identity. Identity genocide can eventually lead to efforts to exterminate a group. The Nuremberg Laws were a step towards delegitimizing Jewish identity that eventually led to the Holocaust. The Lemkin Institute also points out that those who decide which identities will be targeted for removal are already taking “a big step in the direction of genocide.” 

The Institute issued its first red flag alert for genocide against transgender people in a March 2023 response to American “actor-turned-pundit” Michael Knowles announcing at the Conservicative Policitical Action Conference (CPAC) that “for the good of society… transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” to loud applause and shouts of support. The alert implored Americans to protect democratic institutions that preserve the human rights of all people, including those who identify as transgender.

The second Red Flag Alert in June 2025 targeted the Anti-Trans agenda of the Trump Administration, “condemning the US Supreme Court’s Skrmetti v. U.S. decision to uphold the state of Tennessee’s ban on hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender youth. This decision allows similar laws in 24 US states to remain in effect and paves the way for new states — and perhaps the federal government — to follow suit.” This warning attacked claims that the decision was made for the protection of children, viewing it instead as a step towards erasure of trans identity, citing research about the negative mental health consequences of denying youth gender-affirming health care, which can include suicide. Without gender-affirming care, trans youth are likely to shed their identity to fit into a cis gender world. The report likens this action to our history of forcing Indigenous children, under threat of punishment, to abandon their Native American identities, and concludes with a dire warning that this decision will embolden the Trump administration to go much further to eradicate trans identity.

The third Red Flag Alert in March 2026, sounded the alarm on the expansion of the Trump regime’s anti-trans initiatives. Highlights of this detailed report include the following:

  • Between 2021 and 2025 there has been a 668% increase in anti-trans bills.
  • In September, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order describing supporters of the trans community as gender “extremists” and “domestic terrorists.”
  • In 2025 state and federal lawmakers passed 125 anti-trans bills.
  • President Trump signed an executive order, later upheld by the Supreme Court, requiring that new passports contain the sex assigned at birth.
  • Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing organization responsible for Project 2025, told the right-wing PBD Podcast that the foundation’s plan for the transgender community was to “outlaw it” (transgender identity) through a strategy of “radical incrementalism,” including the withdrawal of access to gender-affirming medications for transgender adults.  
  • Transgender people have been falsely blamed for Charlie Kirk’s death; The Heritage Foundation falsely states that 50% of school shooters in 2015 were transgender.
  • Transgender people have been accused of being “against God.”
  • The Trump administration has labeled transgender people a national security threat on par with drug cartels and Islamic militant groups.
  • The governor of Idaho signed a bill in March 2026 criminalizing transgender people for using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity.
  • In 2025 Trump signed an executive order requiring the Bureau of Prisons to house prisoners according to their sex assigned at birth, leaving transgender prisoners physically and psychologically vulnerable.

The conspiracy theories, disinformation, scapegoating, and increasing criminalization of transgender people will leave those who identify as transgender with the impossible choice of denying their identity or suffering increasingly severe legal, social, and even deadly consequences for living authentically. 0.8% of U.S. adults and 3.3% of youth aged 13-17 identify as transgender. 

The Republican-led efforts to purge the United States of transgender people are clearly in sync with the Lemkin Institute’s definition of a genocidal process, in which the United States government intentionally and methodically destroys the expression of transgender identity. This effort will continue to have devastating consequences for transgender human beings, who, even in the best of times have been bullied, isolated, and rejected. I shudder to imagine what the Trump administration’s anti-trans agenda could lead to.   

The Trevor Project reported this month that 1 in 10 LGBTQ+ young people had attempted suicide in the past year. Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, laws, and policies were identified as significant contributing factors.  

Here’s the good news:

Accessing spaces that provide support for their identities, including a supportive adult at school, respect for preferred pronouns, access to gender-neutral bathrooms and clothing that matched gender identity reduced the rate of suicide attempts. Unfortunately, such support is being eliminated in many parts of the U.S.

The war against transgender people in this country is a war against human rights and democracy. Donate, advocate, educate to eradicate transphobic hate!

Sara Weinberger lives in Easthampton.