Health
Citing ‘Biological Truth,’ Kennedy Issues Guidance Recognizing Only Two Sexes
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration had adopted a set of official government “sex-based definitions” to give the public and federal agencies precise terms with which to describe categories including “male,” “female,” “woman” and “man.”
The definitions are listed in a one-page “guidance” that is aimed, in part, at keeping transgender women and girls out of female sports, discouraging gender-affirming care for young people and fulfilling President Trump’s pledge that the federal government will recognize only two sexes: male and female.
“This administration is bringing back common sense and restoring biological truth to the federal government,” Mr. Kennedy said in a statement. “The prior administration’s policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over.”
A male is defined under the guidance as “a person of the sex characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing sperm.” A female is “a person of the sex characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing eggs (ova).”
But many medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, recognize that not everyone fits into neat categories of male and female. Some individuals are intersex and have sexual anatomy or chromosomes that do not fit typical definitions of male and female.
Some children do not identify with either gender, or identify with a gender that does not correspond to their biological sex. The Academy has published its own set of definitions that include transgender youth, described as “a subset of gender-diverse youth whose gender identity does not match their assigned sex.”
As part of the Trump administration initiative, the Health and Human Services Department has launched a new web page for the federal Office on Women’s Health, whose portfolio includes reproductive health, maternal and behavioral health for women.
The new page, entitled “Protecting Women and Children,” features a video with Riley Gaines, the conservative activist and former University of Kentucky all-American swimmer who says she was put at a competitive disadvantage when competing against a transgender woman.
The page links to the guidance and the definitions. “Recognizing the immutable and biological nature of sex is essential to ensure the protection of women’s health, safety, private spaces, sports and opportunities,” the guidance states, adding that the move was “critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.”
Mr. Kennedy’s announcement was in response to an executive order Mr. Trump issued on Jan. 20 that gave the health department 30 days to issue “clear guidance” to the public on how to interpret sex-based definitions.
On Tuesday, Mr. Kennedy delivered a welcome address to department employees in which he said his agency would work toward helping Americans “discover our own paths to living our fullest lives, unleashing the potential in every one of us to make good personal choices that allow us to nourish, to heal and to develop ourselves.”
On Wednesday, opponents of the Trump administration and Mr. Kennedy rallied outside the offices of the Department of Health and Human Services to protest job cuts that have rid the department and its agencies of thousands of workers, including up-and-coming young scientists.
As a presidential candidate, Mr. Kennedy, who once counted himself a Democrat, did not make rolling back transgender rights a central part of his political persona. He once said it was not among “the issues that really matter to you, to me, to our children.”
But he has also made clear he would follow Mr. Trump’s lead. He has said he favors a ban on gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for minors. He has also made unsubstantiated claims, based on a study in frogs, that the chemical atrazine in drinking water is causing sexual dysphoria in children.
Advocates for transgender rights called Mr. Kennedy’s nomination for health secretary “particularly alarming.” In a statement opposing his confirmation, Sinead Murano-Kinney of the group Advocates for Trans Equality called Mr. Kennedy “a conspiratorial figurehead, a yes-man, enabling the worst impulses of a president with a clear agenda to remove trans people from participating in public life.”
Conservatives cheered Wednesday’s announcement. “It took many years of effort but we are finally back to science and common sense,” Roger Severino, who wrote the health section of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for overhauling the federal government, said on social media.
There are roughly 1.6 million youths and adults in the United States who identify as transgender, according to an estimate by the Williams Institute at the U.C.L.A. School of Law. Mr. Trump’s predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr., made protecting transgender people a cornerstone of federal policy.
Mr. Biden’s assistant secretary for health, Dr. Rachel Levine, a pediatrician, made history by becoming the first transgender person to be confirmed by the Senate to a federal position.
Mr. Trump has rapidly reversed Biden administration policies. He has followed up his Jan. 20 executive order with a string of others aimed at stripping away the rights of transgender people in almost every corner of American life — including schools, hospitals, prisons, the military and housing.
Critics have objected not only to the substance of the orders, but to their harsh language. The order barring taxpayer dollars from financing medical interventions for transgender children is headlined “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”
Government agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is under the health department, were ordered to delete any language mentioning “gender ideology” from their websites. A judge has since ordered the C.D.C.’s page restored. Some are still down.
Other sites — including the C.D.C.’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System — now carry a disclaimer.
“This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the administration and this department rejects it,” the disclaimer says, adding that the information presented is “extremely inaccurate.”
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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Nearsightedness (myopia) is skyrocketing globally, with nearly half of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
Heavy use of smartphones and other devices is associated with an 80% higher risk of myopia when combined with excessive computer use, but a new study suggests that dim indoor lighting could also be a factor.
For years, scientists have been puzzled by the different ways myopia is triggered. In lab settings, it can be induced by blurring vision or using different lenses. Conversely, it can be slowed by something as simple as spending time outdoors, research suggests.
Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball grows too long from front to back, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). This physical elongation causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it, making distant objects appear blurry.
The study suggests that myopia isn’t caused by the digital devices themselves, but by the low-light environments where they are typically used. (iStock)
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry identified a potential specific trigger for this growth. When someone looks at a phone or a book up close, the pupil naturally constricts.
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“In bright outdoor light, the pupil constricts to protect the eye while still allowing ample light to reach the retina,” Urusha Maharjan, a SUNY Optometry doctoral student who conducted the study, said in a press release.
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“When people focus on close objects indoors, such as phones, tablets or books, the pupil can also constrict — not because of brightness, but to sharpen the image,” she went on. “In dim lighting, this combination may significantly reduce retinal illumination.”
High-intensity natural light prevents myopia because it provides enough retinal stimulation to override the “stop growing” signal, even when pupils are constricted. (iStock)
The hypothesis suggests that when the retina is deprived of light during extended close-up work, it sends a signal for the eye to grow.
In a dim environment, the narrowed pupil allows so little light through that the retinal activity isn’t strong enough to signal the eye to stop growing, the researchers found.
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In contrast, being outdoors provides light levels much brighter than indoors. This ensures that even when the pupil narrows to focus on a nearby object, the retina still receives a strong signal, maintaining healthy eye development.
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The team noted some limitations of the study, including the small subject group and the inability to directly measure internal lens changes, as the bright backgrounds used to mimic the outdoors made pupils too small for standard equipment.
Researchers believe that increasing indoor brightness during close-up work could be a simple, testable way to slow the global nearsightedness epidemic. (iStock)
“This is not a final answer,” Jose-Manuel Alonso, MD, PhD, SUNY distinguished professor and senior author of the study, said in the release.
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“But the study offers a testable hypothesis that reframes how visual habits, lighting and eye focusing interact.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.
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