Reaction to the policy has been swift. Protesters mobilized in New York with more planned for Monday in Washington, D.C.

The Times has also drawn criticism for its coverage in breaking the story. Chase Strangio of the ACLU, for example, in an article for Out about how to support trans people and organizations, took issue with the characterization of the Obama administration's policy on trans rights:

Today’s New York Times article was written by cis people and quotes almost entirely cis people. It also says that the Obama administration “loosened” the concept of gender, which is false: The Obama administration realized that sex as it was defined under the law actually encompassed and protected trans people. By stating the Obama administration “loosened” the definition of gender, the Times actually plays into the hands of the GOP, who are now clinging to a “biological” definition of legal sex versus the “idea” of gender identity. Legal sex includes trans people, and a trans reporter would’ve caught that.

Back in 2016, even Chris Wallace at Fox News called the mania around keeping transgender people out of bathrooms "a solution looking for a problem," and it's hard to see what problem this new proposed change would solve. No one is safer because of this. It's not a policy designed to protect anyone from anything, simply a vehicle to deny protections to an already demonized group. Trump is always looking for distractions since he's constantly hounded by embarrassing scandals. But it seems much more in line with Atlantic writer Adam Serwer's summary of the Trump administration: "The cruelty is the point." For a swath of Trump supporters, he's appealing precisely because he goes out of his way to "trigger the libs" and cause pain to minorities. It's even the entire basis for Trump's immigration policy.

Identity politics—white, angry, bigoted identity—has paid off handsomely for Republicans for a generation now and it's delivered every one of Trump's major victories since the election. There's no incentive for either him or his party to abandon it now.