How Trump's Weird Fixation on DEI Continues to Hurt Women

Women are fighting on all fronts: history, health, and science.

The Trump administration’s obsession with DEI has wreaked havoc on college campuses and in workplaces across the country — shuttering entire academic departments, including those devoted to gender studies, as well as gutting scholarship and mentorship programs, professional affinity groups, and even networking opportunities for women. Lately we have seen its toll on the advancement of longstanding legislative and regulatory initiatives. Among them:

Imagine a museum for women included in this space. (Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash)

American Women’s History Museum. Last week, Democrats uniformly rejected a bill that would have identified a site on the National Mall to house the American Women’s History Museum, a long-awaited Smithsonian installment and decades-long bipartisan priority. A poison pill torpedoed progress: The bill was recently amended to limit the focus of the museum to achievements of “biological women” only, thereby excluding and erasing contributions of transgender women and girls in public life, from science to politics to arts and culture; another revised provision would have given President Trump’s cultural appointees unilateral control over the museum’s design and construction.

To be fair, six Republicans joined the Democrats in opposition. At least one simply doesn’t believe we need a museum dedicated to women’s lives in any iteration. “We say we need to unite this country, but then we isolate every group,” complained Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), when casting his vote. [Beware strange bedfellows.]

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM), chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, responded on the House Floor: “It was a simple bill — you kind of ruined it with your trans obsession and your culture wars.” The DWC’s public statement cut right to the chase: “A museum about women, fought for and supported by women, should not be controlled by one man. It completely flies in the face of the museum’s intention—Republicans traded the representation of women for Trump’s gain and ego. It’s as embarrassing as it is disappointing. Women deserve the right to tell their own story.”

Black Maternal Health. The Democrats’ recently reintroduced Momnibus Act of 2026, a suite of federal bills championed by Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), made headlines for a notable difference from prior versions of the legislation: removal of the words “Black Maternal Health” in the title and the word “Black” in nearly all of the legislative text.

Prior Momnibus bills — known as the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, introduced in 2020, 2021, and 2023 — have been in direct response to rising maternal mortality rates in the United States, which are among the highest in the world, especially among wealthy nations, and which disproportionately impact Black women, who are three times more likely to die from childbirth or related causes than their white counterparts, regardless of education or affluence. (Not-to-be missed: an excellent new book out on this topic, Expecting Inequity, by law professor and anthropologist Dr. Khiara Bridges.)

As reported by The 19th, many of the legislative text changes were codified in the 2023 version. Rep. Underwood explained that for some of the associated bills, including the Kira Johnson Act (please follow the work of Charles Johnson at 4Kira4Moms; he is an extraordinary voice and leader), removing the word “Black,” even during the Biden administration, was a technical edit or offered alignment with language used by the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Minority Health (which itself has come under fire from the Trump administration).

The legislative name change has spurred a discourse that is simultaneously painful and pragmatic: What does it look like to demand and achieve meaningful progress in this landscape? Some advocates have sounded the alarm about obscuring those most harmed by a health crisis, deeming Black women’s lives politically expedient to ignore. A statement from the State Innovation Exchnage points to collateral legislative damage, like the “downstream effects” of federal language on “how states frame and fund maternal health programs meant to close a gap that disproportionately kills Black women.” An article in The Grio emphasized Rep. Underwood’s own political commitment and savvy: “Beneath the surface — and within the bill’s legislative history — a much more nuanced and compelling story emerges. What’s really been occurring is a team of legislators working during the current Trump Administration and its constant attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives—despite their potential to advance outcomes for all—to bend without breaking in an effort to get some version of this act passed that can still help those who need it most.”

This is crucial work to follow. At present, the 2026 Momnibus package is supported by 206 sponsors and includes 14 bills (one of which, the Protecting Moms Who Served Act, has been signed into law).

Federal research dollars. Last but not least, the Washington Post reported that the number of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants focused on women’s health has been slashed by 30 percent. What else would we expect, with words like “women” and “gender” explicitly banned from appearing in funding proposals? On this front, it is worth noting that though deeply problematic, the dismal allocation of research dollars is not solely a Trump-fueled predicament. Women’s health has been sidelined for decades, persistently underfunded, perpetually under-researched, and cataclysmically misunderstood. Despite making up more than half of the world’s population, women’s biology and lived experiences have a long history of exclusion, no matter which party has been in charge.

All of which adds up to the responsibility we have, Contrarians, every one of us. Our voices and votes matter more than ever, even as too many are erased from the body politic in real time.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU School of Law. She also leads strategy and partnerships at Ms. Magazine.

---