When government deems groups unworthy of basic human rights, that malignancy can metastasize and infest their self-image.

Less than a year after the Obama administration issued a federal order allowing transgender students to use restrooms matching their gender identity, President Trump revoked it. (Fortunately, Massachusetts’ students will remain protected under the state’s transgender public accommodations law.)

How many young lives will be irreparably damaged by Trump’s reversal?

Certainly those for whom a trip to the bathroom will once again be a minefield of violence and provocations. Others will be so discouraged that they’ll drop out of school rather than endure another day of humiliation at the hands of bullies and bigots. Worse still, now that the nation’s leader has stripped away such hard-won protections, these vulnerable young people who’ve struggled to find peace within themselves and their communities may doubt their very value.

There’s now proof that the opposite is true — that recognition of one’s rights can enhance a person’s self-worth.

Last week, JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) Pediatrics released a study showing that teen suicide attempts, especially among LGBT youth, dropped in states that enacted marriage equality laws. (This study ran prior to the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.) Before the passage of state-level same-sex marriage laws, nearly 9 percent of teens and 29 percent of LGBT teens had attempted suicide. After state laws were enacted, suicide attempts dropped to 8 percent among all teens and 25 percent among those identifying as LGBT.

Suicide is the second most common cause of death for those between the ages of 15 and 24. Among LGBT people in this age group, nearly 30 percent reported attempting suicide within the past 12 months, compared to 6 percent of young people who identify as heterosexual.

But now we know that when a government values people’s rights, people are more likely to value their own lives.

The Trump White House presents daunting challenges for LGBT people, a long marginalized community. He has stacked his administration with people like Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, both of whom have long histories of hostility toward this community. As a congressman, Pence supported phony “conversion therapy,’’ which is nothing more than theocratic snake oil meant to torment lesbians and gay men into believing they can “change.’’ Later, as Indiana’s governor, he signed a “religious freedom’’ law allowing bigots to hide their discriminatory actions behind the Bible.

Sessions, then an Alabama senator, voted against a 2009 hate crimes prevention bill, saying he wasn’t convinced that “people with different sexual orientations face that kind of discrimination.’’ Now, as head of the Justice Department, Sessions is already rolling back protections for transgender students. He, along with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, put in the crosshairs children who want to thrive in society, not just exist. At an already emotionally tumultuous time of life, these kids are being told that the government no longer has their backs.

Julia Raifman, of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and lead author of the JAMA teen suicide study, said even though high school students, for the most part, “aren’t getting married anytime soon,’’ permitting “same-sex marriage reduces structural stigma associated with sexual orientation. There may be something about having equal rights — even if they have no immediate plans to take advantage of them — that makes students feel less stigmatized and more hopeful for the future.’’

From its beginnings, the Trump administration has shown reckless disregard for human rights, especially for our most vulnerable populations. This should surprise no one and outrage everyone. What this administration has done, and will likely do again, is make these students, and anyone who is not straight and white and male, feel more stigmatized and less hopeful for the future. And the end result of these abysmal decisions could prove catastrophic for a nation facing the very real threat of being shoved back into its stifling, exclusionary past.

Renée Graham can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @reneeygraham.