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“Left to my own devices, I’d love to go back to not giving a shit about my gender,” history podcast host Margaret Killjoy wrote in her newsletter Birds Before The Storm last March. She resented being an unwilling transgender soldier in the latest unfounded culture war.

Similarly I, as a trans man, didn’t expect to go out on my lunch break Wednesday and see myself labeled a domestic terrorist by the President of the United States. I had just hoped for some chilaquiles.

Trump’s latest directive, NSPM-7, is slightly different from his prior executive orders. It’s a national security presidential memo, which means it is “a sweeping policy decree for the defense, foreign policy, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatus,” political reporter Ken Klippenstein wrote for TruthOut.

NSPM-7 calls for the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the Justice Department, the FBI, and other national security agencies and departments to crush “leftist political violence” in America. “Extremism on gender” is on that list. Normally, NSPMs are kept secret (whereas EOs are public). Trump choosing to publish NSPM-7 is most likely a scare tactic.

It’s hard for me to write about how likely it is that the Trump administration will follow through on all these never-ending, wide-ranging plans for trans people. The administration has adhered closely to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 handbook, and there’s no reason to think they won’t continue to do so on gender issues. Just a week before NSPM-7 was announced, the Foundation used its Oversight Project arm to push the absurd lie that “50% of all major (non-gang related) school shootings since 2015 have involved or likely involved transgender ideology.” Their data involves cutting school shootings down to around ten based on their own incoherent criteria and labeling about five of those as involving transness in some way.

Oversight then took to X to request the FBI include an explicit category of Domestic Violent Extremists (DVE) for trans ideology called TIVE: Trans Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremists.

They claim TIVEs use “violence to coerce and intimidate the public or government into accepting their view of the transgender debate.” If the federal government refused to single out trans activism, Oversight continued, it’s only because they are ignoring the real threat and trying to “avoid tough conversations that may be perceived as politically incorrect.”

TIVEs believe “that violence is justified against those who do not share radical views of transgender ideology,” Oversight tweeted. “It has led to an increasing trend of TIVE domestic terrorist events across the country.”

The current definition of “domestic terrorism” (“USC. § 2331(5)”) — emboldened by The PATRIOT Act (2001) — states that it involves “acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State.” These include those that “appear to be intended” to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion,” and to “affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.” It’s very broad.

But even “extremists” still have the right to offensive and hateful speech under the First Amendment, Oversight conceded. Both USC 2331(5) and the FCC’s own definitions of domestic terrorism also mention the protections of the First Amendment. However, on September 17, Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to “go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech,” which is an obvious violation of free speech and contradicts the above. Sebastian Gorka, the White House’s leader on counterterrorism, said on the right-wing news network NewsMax that “the left refuses to rid themselves of the justification for violence and as such, President Trump is taking measures to protect us from the violent rhetoric that becomes snipers and bullets.” Hate speech, previously protected, is selectively criminal depending on who’s doing it. Bondi was later forced to clarify she only meant if that speech incites violence, but if she misspoke, it’s only because she said the quiet part out loud.

The Oversight Project listed dangerous terminology used by TIVE as “cis,” “deadnaming,” “misgendering,” “right to exist,” and “trans genocide.” So basically, any words the administration doesn’t like will be met with justification for state violence.

USC2331(5) separates the definition of international terrorism and domestic terrorism because there’s no law to officially charge groups that have no foreign ties with the criminal act of “terrorism.”

You can be tried for “domestic terrorist incidents” or “domestic terrorist plots,” but not “domestic terrorism.” For example, while white supremacist militias like the KKK have seen crackdowns, they’ve never been labeled “domestic terrorism”. They’re charged for “organized crime” or “conspiracy” or “assault” while avoiding the “terrorist” stigma and Terrorism Sentencing Enhancements. What falls under “domestic terrorist plots” is up for FBI interpretation under Trump nominee Kash Patel. The agency creates watchlists of potential or acting domestic terrorists and can arrest anyone they want to for crimes related to that without needing ties to one central group.

What can happen when a group — for example, “gender extremists” or transgender people or a person believed to be in that group — is labeled “terrorism” is as follows:

1. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, companies can be compelled to turn over normally private communications. FISA, and some of the charges below are technically not to be used against domestic terrorists, only foreign ones. But there’s a loophole for turning “domestic terrorists” into “foreign terrorists” by using the charge of “abetting” foreign terror groups. For example, a trans person who supports a free Palestine can suddenly be “linked to Hamas.” Then, all their messages and information can be disclosed to law enforcement and put into databases.
2. There could be lower evidentiary thresholds for wire-tapping, surveillance and undercover operations of trans organizations, clinics, nonprofits, and even online spaces as “terror cells.” Sometimes with no warrants needed.
3.  Just like we’ve seen with making “doxing a federal agent” into a felony, the federal government could label all law enforcement as a “protected group” and turn any pushback against them into “hate crimes.” In Los Angeles on September 29, three women became the first people in the country indicted under the new law enforcement anti-doxing laws.
4. If gender-affirming care becomes a specific part of “recruiting” terrorists or “aiding” terrorism, hospitals or doctors treating trans patients could be named part of “terrorist” networks. The providers could also be monitored without their knowledge and without any public record.
5. USCODE 1468 criminalizes “producing and providing” obscene materials through TV, wire, and satellite. The FCC, headed by Republican Brendan Carr, is who decides what that means. Describing “sexual and excretory organs” is listed as potentially “obscene.” So discussing trans issues could count as a crime. There’s extra harsh sentencing for anyone doing this with someone under 16, so this could apply to teachers educating students about trans people or parents supporting gender-affirming care.
6. Courts could use the felony terrorism charge — no matter what the original crime even was — to deny custody, adoption, or foster care rights to trans parents.
7. Anyone found providing funding or assistance to “antifa” or “gender ideology extremists” (as labeled in NSPM-7) or other designated “dangerous groups” could be jailed for racketeering and tried for conspiracy for making plans for any type of political action, even if no crime is committed. Donating to a trans nonprofit, volunteering at a clinic, or even letting an activist sleep at your home could be prosecuted as aiding terrorism. Chats about protest strategy, online forums, or mutual aid planning could be reframed as “terrorist plotting.”
8. If a trans person is convicted of any crime, prosecutors could argue for harsher sentences under “terrorism sentencing enhancements.”
9. Trans people would be disallowed from owning firearms. They’d be banned from traveling internationally (under the no-fly list for terrorists). Trans immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers could be denied entry or expelled on “terrorism grounds.”
10. The FBI would have lower standards of proof for tracing bank accounts and payments and requiring banks and companies to stop working with “terrorist” group members. The Treasury Department can freeze assets and property. GoFundMe, Patreon, and Venmo donations for trans healthcare or bail funds could be labeled terrorist financing. People tied to “terrorist” groups — uninvolved family members included — could lose jobs in government, education, healthcare, or any field requiring background checks.

It’s all malleable based on the whims of the federal government and the loose language of these so-called protections against those deemed a danger to society.

The problem for both sides is that antifa is not one group. It stands for “anti-fascist.” I’ve been active on the ground fighting ICE in LA for months. In July, we spoke to an LAPD officer who wanted to know who our leader was. Someone told him there wasn’t one. We were all strangers who felt what was happening was inhumane. The officer was baffled that we weren’t a coordinated gang doing this for some agency or organization.

When no one is antifa, everyone is antifa. When everyone is antifa, all trans people are trantifa.

The term “trantifa” was brought into the mainstream again in 2023 by gay far-right pundit Andy Ngo. (He didn’t coin it because no one on the right could come up with a moniker that punk rock.)

Ironically, Ngo first used “trantifa” to refer to pro-trans counter-protesters at an anti-trans rally, thus admitting that an anti-trans rally was taking place. On a March 2025 episode of a podcast hosted by a former member of the band Mumford & Sons titled “The Rise of Tran-Tifa: A DANGEROUS Fusion Of Extremism and Trans Ideology,” Ngo again pushed the idea that trans and antifa are one and the same.

He compared “trantifa” to “Radical Islam,” saying it has no central agency but instead comprises a dangerous ideology that spreads in far-ranging leftist terrorist “cells.” Trantifa are “religious fundamentalists,” because they believe everyone is a fascist, according to Ngo. Their actions are “excuses for sociopathic people to carry out destruction, anarchy and chaos.”

Even the “liberal media” is salivating to label anyone fighting fascism as a terrorist. On September 19, the New York Times’ Charlie Savage recklessly and irresponsibly described the antifa label as “a diffuse and sometimes violent protest culture of far-left activists who want to stop the far right. The movement is associated with an aggressive form of protest its adherents call ‘direct action,’ which can sometimes cross the line into illegal or violent activity like breaking store windows or setting police cars on fire.” (Ngo also seemed pointedly upset at antifa for destroying Tesla dealerships.)

The incorrect and incendiary description of “anti-fascist” both alarmed me and made me laugh. It’s so, so bad that the paper of record included “violent” in their “antifa” definition. It’s so, so bad that they echoed the fear-mongering buzzword “far left” and framed it as a fight against the “far right,” as if there are two equal sides when one has access to the entire military and the other does not. It is goddamn horrible to label “direct action” like sit-ins, strikes, or boycotts as illegal and violent activity and then only specifically mention property destruction. The reporter quotes two experts on domestic terrorism and extremist groups, but not one activist.

I have no hope that the law or the Democratic party and their processes will save us. Neither party is interested in materially helping trans people if it causes them any negativity. Even Democratic superstars like Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg have made spineless and unscientific comments about the fairness of trans girls in sports. Outlets like Politico have labeled the fight for transgender rights “a liability for Democrats.” Even Reem Alsalem, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, has been raising the alarm about a rise in “far-left transgender” activists.

On September 22, WhiteHouse.gov announced that Trump would continue to crush “radical left violence.” In that release, trans people were singled out in three different antifa attacks, solidifying the antifa and trans connection. Even though Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer Tyler Robinson wasn’t trans, the administration and right wing press twisted themselves into pretzels to connect him to any trans person he knew or loved.

I can’t peddle in predictions anymore. I could sit here and run you through all the legal hurdles the President would face if he tried to solidify all transgender people as terrorists or tried to implement any of the consequences on the list I compiled above, but Trump doesn’t care. The administration will do it anyway. The Vice President went on Fox News and said trans people and the far left (lumped together) are violent organizations. One entity to be destroyed.

“We’re looking at the entire spider web for any of these attacks,” FBI director Patel said when asked about shootings by trans individuals, according to Klippenstein’s reporting. Attorney General Bondi linked trans people with entrenching an untouchable doctrine of gender ideology in schools.

“Two days before Kirk was killed, Donald Trump condemned ‘transgender insanity,’ Klippenstein wrote. “Then in an interview about the shooting, he blamed ‘the radicals on the left,’ saying: ‘they want transgender for everyone.’”

Maybe I’m naive, but it never occurred to me that I was in any kind of specific danger for doing the work I’m doing. Like Margaret, I don’t walk around thinking about being trans. I’m white. I’m short. I don’t feel as dangerous as the GOP insists I am. I didn’t start worrying until a few weeks ago that it might cause some chaos and horror if the police didn’t know what jail to hold me in. My ID says “male” but I don’t pass 100 percent of the time. Is my presence at protests and actions putting everyone else in danger because anything I do can make us all trantifa? (I’ve been told no, but I continue to check in about the radiating target on my back.)

On September 17, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a poll asking his followers if “antifa” or “trantifa” were the greatest terror threats facing America. The third option said that they were one and the same. Two million people saw the tweet. One hundred and twenty nine thousand overwhelmingly voted that the terms were identical.

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