As boys shift to the right, we are seeing the rise of the ‘new chill girl’ | Naomi Beinart

Even in comparatively liberal spaces, such as my high school, girls who wince at locker room talk risk exclusion

Since Donald Trump returned to office, I have noticed a phenomenon at my high school that I call the new chill girl". A group of kids is talking casually about something. Seemingly out of the blue, one of the boys makes an off-handed joke. Maybe it's racist or sexist or homophobic, but whatever the poison, they inject it and the group dynamic shifts ever so slightly. As a general rule, the boys continue as usual while the girls - who tend to be more politically progressive - face a choice: they can speak up, which usually results in them getting the reputation as annoying and unable to take a joke, or they can let it pass and be regarded as a chill girl who isn't angry or woke. Since November 2024, the latter reaction has become far more common.

This kind of fearful silence is becoming more common outside of high schools, too. In December of 2024, Disney removed a transgender character from a new series. This April, the New York Times reported that a new Trump administration regulation bars government employees from adding pronouns to their email bios. Two days after that, Gannet, one of the US's largest newspaper chains, cited Trump's opposition to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion when announcing that it would no longer publish statistics on employee diversity.