Throughout President-elect Donald Trump’s recent campaign, he has made his plans to reverse legal protections for LGBTQ+ people abundantly clear. As a result of his re-election, along with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress to back up his policies, LGBTQ+ Americans have begun to confront the harsh reality of what a second term for Trump could look like.
During Trump’s first term in office, his administration was overtly hostile toward the queer community. The Trump administration opposed the Equality Act, which would have amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation or gender identity in areas including housing, employment and education. Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration erased protections against discrimination for LGBTQ+ people established under the Affordable Care Act.
While the Biden administration reversed many of the Trump-era setbacks, a second term for Trump is likely to include a return to a lack of protections for queer, and specifically transgender, Americans. Earlier this year in May, Trump promised to undo a Biden administration policy offering protections for transgender students under Title IX, a federal civil rights law that protects people from sex-based discrimination in federally-funded education programs.
In 2017, Trump directed the Department of Defense to reverse an order allowing openly transgender people to serve in the military, blaming his decision on the cost of gender-affirming care for these individuals. While the Biden administration overturned this order in 2021, Trump would likely reinstate his previous policy early on in his second term.
There have been several state-led initiatives in recent years focused on blocking gender-affirming care for transgender minors. The Human Rights Campaign reported in August that 26 states had a ban or restriction against gender-affirming care for minors. Additionally, 39.4% of transgender youth lived in states with bans on receiving gender-affirming care.
Trump has indicated that his administration would support the actions of these states and further their goals by attempting to block gender-affirming care for minors on a national level. Trump has threatened to cut federal funding to hospitals that provide this care, despite the fact that many doctors and psychiatrists consider it life-saving for young people with gender dysphoria.
Trump’s campaign also included plenty of anti-trans rhetoric. According to data released by Ad Impact, an advertising intelligence company, Republicans have spent as much as $215 on anti-trans ads throughout this election cycle. One of these ads included a statement that Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is for “they/them– not you,” targeting the use of gender-neutral pronouns by non-binary people and Harris’ previous statements supporting transgender rights.
During a rally held at Madison Square Garden before the election, Trump said, “We will get … transgender insanity the hell out of our schools, and we will keep men out of women’s sports.” This statement was one of numerous attacks made by Trump aimed at the extremely small number of trans women competing in women’s sports.
In the final days of his campaign, Trump also repeatedly referred to openly gay CNN reporter Anderson Cooper as “Allison Cooper” as a way of questioning his masculinity and perpetuating stereotypes about gay men. This attack on Cooper was one of many ways in which Trump attempted to appeal to young male voters, as his closing message largely revolved around a hypermasculine tone along with reinforcement of traditional gender roles.
Throughout his campaign, Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025. However, the President-elect has numerous undeniable ties to the plan considering that many intended members of his second administration and some of his campaign officials were involved in drafting the document. The presidential transition plan created by the Heritage Foundation, a self-described “conservative think tank,” includes policies that would threaten LGBTQ+ marriage and families under the banner of “restoring the American family.”
The project also claims that heterosexual, two-parent families are safer for children, providing an open opportunity to attack LGBTQ+ marriage rights. This false claim was made despite research by the American Sociological Association concluding that American children living within same-sex parent households fare just as well as children living within different-sex parent households.
One of the most concerning demonstrations of the impact of Trump’s re-election on queer Americans was the flood of calls and chats received by LGBTQ+ crisis hotlines following the election. The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization centered around suicide prevention among queer youth, reported an almost 700% increase in the volume of people reaching out to its crisis services on November 6 compared to the weeks prior. This alarming statistic signifies the real impact of Trump’s discriminatory rhetoric and policies on an already vulnerable demographic of Americans.
