Basics
The United States of America (USA; US) is a sovereign state located in North America. It is a federal democratic republic consisting of fifty states.
The US is indexed on Pyrophore because for the entirety of Pyrophore‘s period of operation to date, and for a significant period beforehand, it has been one of the predominant military and economic powers in the world. US government policy significantly influences developments abroad even when that policy is entirely domestic in scope, and the US government and US-based groups also exercise significant intentional power in the formation of policy abroad. When their intentions are anti-trans in nature, the results tend to spark significant events which fall within Pyrophore‘s scope.
Detail
Timeline.
1993, December 21. Les Aspin, US Secretary of Defense, issues Department of Defense Directive 1304.12, inaugurating the policy then known as “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” (now simply “don’t ask, don’t tell”).
1996, May 20. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in Romer v Evans. The case concerns 1992 Colorado Amendment 2, an amendment to the Constitution of the State of Colorado passed that year by ballot initiative, which would have prevented any city, town, or county in the state from taking any action whatsoever to recognise queer people as a protected class. The Supreme Court finds that Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and sets it aside.
1996, September 21. Bill Clinton, President of the United States, signs the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into law.
2003, June 26. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in Lawrence v Texas. It finds that US state laws criminalising sodomy between consenting adults violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
2009, October 28. Barack Obama, President of the United States, signs the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed earlier that year, into law. The law expands the hate crime statute in Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 to cover crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
2011, September 20. After certification from the US President, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2011 takes full effect, ending “don’t ask, don’t tell”.
2013, June 26. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in United States v Windsor. The case concerns the Defense of Marriage Act § 3, which, among other things, prevents Edith Windsor, the appellee, from claiming the federal estate tax exemption for surviving spouses on the estate of her wife, Thea Spyer.
The Supreme Court finds that DOMA § 3 violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and sets it aside.
2015, June 26. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in Obergefell v Hodges. The case concerns the constitutionality of state bans on same-gender marriage.
The Supreme Court finds that such bans violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and sets them aside.
2017, January 20. Donald Trump is inaugurated as President of the United States for the first time.
2020, June 15. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
2020, June 25. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in Bostock v Clayton County.
2025, January 20. Donald Trump is inaugurated as President of the United States for the second time.
2025, January 27. US President Donald Trump issues an executive order, “Prioritizing military excellence and readiness,” which stipulates that trans people are banned from military service and those who are already serving in the military are expelled.
2025, May 1. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) publishes a report, Treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria: Review of evidence and best practices (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2025). Analogous to the British Cass Review, the report is largely a tissue of obvious lies and malicious misinterpretations intended to delegitimise the provision of trans healthcare and the existence of trans people in public life.
No authors or reviewers are credited. Metadata analysis by Canadian legal academic Florence Ashley reveals the identity of at least one person involved in the creation of the file: Alex Byrne, a philosophy professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and veteran anti-trans activist (Byrne, 2023). The file’s metadata also contains the names John Koenig and Blake Sanchez, provisionally identified as two consultants with those names on the Health team at Guidehouse, a management consulting business which works with HHS (Paré, 2025).
2025, June 6. The US Department of Defense begins the process of expelling trans service members who have not voluntarily separated by this date (Hegseth, 2025).
2025, June 18. The Supreme Court of the United States issues its judgment in United States v Skrmetti. The Court rules 6–3 that it is constitutional for states to ban trans healthcare for people under the age of majority, notwithstanding that that care is medically necessary and evidence-based according to the prevailing scientific and medical consensus.
2025, August 4. The United States Air Force issues a memo indicating that transgender service members who had served for between 15 and 18 years, who had previously been given the option to take a standard early retirement, will instead be separated without retirement benefits (Stewart, 2025). The decision is expected to cost those affected hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetimes (OUTinPerth, 2025).
2026, May 6. The White House publishes the 2026 edition of the United States Counterterrorism Strategy (Executive Office of the President of the United States, 2026). In a novel development, the strategy mentions transness as a potential ideological enemy, including by:
- falsely describing Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer Tyler Robinson as “a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideologies”;
- stating that “our national [counterterrorism] activities will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is,” among other things, “radically pro-transgender”.
References
Byrne, A. (2023, April 17). Philosophy’s no-go zone. Quillette (Quillette Pty Ltd); Archive Today. Retrieved 4 May 2025.
Exec Order No 14183 (“Prioritizing military excellence and readiness”), 90 Fed Reg 8757 (27 January 2025).
Executive Office of the President of the United States (2026, May 6). United States counterterrorism strategy. Retrieved 13 May 2026.
Hegseth, P.B. (2025, May 8). Implementing policy on prioritizing military excellence and readiness [Secretary of Defense memorandum]. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved 9 August 2025.
McNamara, B. (2025, June 18). What the Supreme Court’s gender-affirming care decision means for you: Everything we know about how Skrmetti will impact your healthcare. Teen Vogue (Advance Publications, Inc.); Archive Today. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
OUTinPerth (2025, August 9). US revokes approved early retirement of trans service members, removing their benefits. Speirins Media Pty Ltd. Retrieved 9 August 2025.
Paré, F.A. (2023, May 2). If you open the anti-trans HHS report’s appendix, you’ll see that it was compiled by Alex Byrne. The appendix purports … [Facebook post]. Facebook (Meta Platforms, Inc.); Archive Today. Retrieved 4 May 2025.
Stewart, P. (2025, August 8). Exclusive: US Air Force denies early retirement for group of transgender service members. Reuters. Retrieved 9 August 2025.
United States v Skrmetti (US, No 23–477, 18 June 2025) slip op.
US Department of Health and Human Services (2025, May 1). Treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria: Review of evidence and best practices. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
Metadata
- Version: 3 (13 May 2026).
- Created: 2 May 2025.