With a barrage of executive orders, which he signed in his first week at the White House, President Donald Trump targeted the rights and future of colored people and immigrants. But beware who stood out in his opening speech: Trans and Nonbinary, a minority within the LGBTQ+ community minority.

“It will now be the official policy of the United States government to have only two sexes,” Trump said during his speech at the Rotunda of Capitol. “Male and female”.

With a signature on Monday, he asked the federal government to limit gender identity to passports and social security cards, to prevent the use of tax revenue for healthcare for gender confirmation and to separate the federal prisons. gender defined at birth and not by identity. A separate executive decree paved the way for the ban on trans people from serving in the army.

It didn’t rise as much rage as I expected, but it makes sense. Most Americans, as polls show, do not personally know anyone identified as trans or using gender neutral pronouns, and therefore may not see how what is happening in this estimated 0.6% of Population could potentially affect their lives.

That is why, in a way, Trump’s executive orders are the result of a much deeper social dilemma: the reduction of public support for trans and nonbinary Americans. According to a Yougov poll, 36% say trans people’s “acceptance” has increased by 7 percentage points since 2018. An additional 34% has no opinion and 15% say Trump’s decisions were correct. And this despite the benefits of the policy in the blue states, where residents can change sex in their driving licenses and be recorded as a neutral sex in their birth certificates. Similar policies were adopted at federal level under former President Joe Biden, but now they have been overthrown.

So the question is what is the best way to persuade more people to care and see the president’s executive commands in the way we make many of us in the queer community?

The most obvious answer is to point out that every time a group’s rights are targeted in the way Trump did, it becomes much easier to do with other groups, abolishing freedoms and personal freedoms that are supposed to be integral part of American life. Indeed, many in the LGBTQ+ community predict that measures will lead to increased harassment. It will also make it more difficult to perform the duties of daily life, such as boarding a plane.

Legal challenges are being examined. The work of defending the rights of these about 2 million Americans has largely undertaken defense groups such as Glaad and the human rights campaign. Both groups understand that the battle for public opinion is more important, because, without it, without a victorious message, there will be not enough momentum to support a political movement to press against executive decrees such as those signed this week.

More must be done to meet people, whether they are transphobic or just feel uncomfortable. This means that the stories of parents who want their trans children to be happy should be shown. We could also bring out trans and nonbinary adults who are willing to explain their gender identity journey and deeply worry about discrimination, violence or loss of access to health care.

But above all, take a lesson from the late San Francisco Harvey Milk supervisor. It was in 1978 that the openly gay politician, protesting the proposed ban on homosexual teachers, urged homosexuals to “come out wherever they are” as a political tactic. He understood then – and the Pew Research Center confirmed more than three decades later – that knowing someone who is gay or lesbian leads to greater support for policies that benefit homosexuals, such as gay marriage for example.

I mentioned that most Americans do not know someone who is trans or nonbinary. This matters because there are no similar personal experiences that guide them to policies related to trans and nonbinary individuals, and are prone to lies and fears of Republicans, such as attacking Drag Queens, most of whom do not even identify with the trans.

Democrats are in a particularly strong position to change their minds. But things get complicated due to the fact that Trump’s executive orders are coming as the party is still stuck in a November election game, with some insisting that previous press pressures were the reason for which former Vice President Kamala Harris lost. Such claims are excessive.

Massachusetts spokesman Seth Moulton, who was disapproved of because he did not want his daughters to lose a “former male athlete”, recently regretted the consequences of this lack of different narrative. “What the Trump government is doing with this executive decree is to directly deny the right to exist trans people as a matter of federal policy,” Boston’s public radio. “We knew that this would come, and yet the Democrats refused to even discuss issues such as trans people in places with a specific sex or in one -sex spaces.”

Even spokeswoman Sarah McBride, the Democrats from Deluer, the first trans member of Congress, told the New York Times that “there are absolutely legitimate questions that need to be answered about the rules for participating in different sports programs”. But he argued that this is a matter for sports compounds, not for Congress.

It is important to remember that public opinion is supple. A recent poll by Ipsos and the New York Times found that 79% of Americans believe that trans women – men who were men at birth – should not compete in women’s sports. It is indicative that this represents a shift of 17 points in less than four years, when Republicans began to raise the issue for the use of gender identity.

However, the vast majority of Americans continue to support existing laws that protect against hate crimes and discrimination in employment. This should be regarded as a basis for a more productive public debate on trans and nonbinary people’s rights, and a way to prevent a president who wants to delete people with a signature.

Erika D. Smith is a political columnist at Bloomberg Opinion. He is a former Los Angeles Times columnist and a member of the Sacramento Bee editorial committee.