In this paper I develop a novel account of dehumanization, and use it to help think through the various ways in which trans and gender diverse people are dehumanized in the current political context. The standard way of conceptualizing dehumanization is as a certain kind of attitude: it is a matter of seeing others as less than human. On my alternative, dehumanization is instead a matter of what is done to people. And what is done, I argue, is excommunication from the category of the human. This approach, crucially, requires us to reconceive the human as a social, rather than a natural, category; that is, as a social status that is conferred upon us, rather than a quality inherent to us. Dehumanization involves denying someone that status, thereby removing them from the category of the human. I identify three modes through which dehumanization can manifest: as an attempt to change the rules about who counts as human; as a refusal to treat certain others according to the rules for how humans ought to be treated; and as a failure to accommodate certain ways of being human within the social imaginary. All three modes of dehumanization, I suggest, are evident – and increasing – in the contemporary public discourse about trans and gender diverse people.