The American Psychological Association is decrying reports that Trump administration will redefine the definition of sex in civil rights law to remove protections for transgender people, with the group saying the proposed change defies decades of scientific findings on the issue.

Media outlets reported Monday that the Trump administration is considering redefining sex under the law as the gender a person was born with. The move could potentially roll back existing civil rights protections for transgender Americans, limiting their access to jobs, education and health care, CNN reported.

The Trump administration said the policy change would be based on science but APA disputes that claim. In a statement, the association noted that decades of research shows that gender is not necessarily defined by a person's biological sex.

"Purposely ignoring this body of evidence is indefensible and certain to add to the stress and discrimination already experienced by transgender people," APA elected President Jessica Henderson Daniel said.

The White House proposal is only the latest attempt by conservative lawmakers at both the federal and state levels to legally limit gender to a person's sex at birth. Multiple associations announced they would no longer hold events in North Carolina after the state passed a law in 2016 preventing transgender people from using public restrooms not corresponding to their sex at the time at birth. The state repealed the law a year later but replaced it with another law preventing local governments from passing nondiscrimination ordinances.

APA opposed the North Carolina bathroom law. As for the Trump administration proposal, Daniel said that reliance on the term biological sex "ignores the complexity of the spectrum of sex, including natural variation in gender identity and the existence of people with differences in sex development."

"Redefining a well-established term within federal policy with such harmful consequences is without justification," she said. "We call on the administration to abandon this wrongheaded approach."

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