During his first term, President Donald Trump sought to remove protections for the LGBTQ+ community throughout the federal government. His ideas included the removal of diplomatic visas for same-sex partners and banning transgender people from joining the military.
With Trump’s re-election, many of these efforts are expected to continue into his new term. Project 2025, an initiative to reshape the federal government in favor of right-wing policies that has been associated with Trump’s administration, proposes limitations on LGBTQ+ rights. It claims that federal civil rights statutes will not cover anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination and discusses blockades for transgender people in federal health programs. Many of these policies would violate the Constitution if they were to be implemented.
The Trump administration has already shifted away from the Biden administration’s actions that protected the LGBTQ+ community. Trump has repealed Biden’s previous Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, which will impact how LGBTQ+ people experience the workplace. Additionally, the State Department has suspended a policy that previously allowed for transgender, intersex and nonbinary people to update their gender markers on their passports. The State Department webpage with “LGBTQ Travel Information” has also been altered to “LGB Travel Information,” removing any reference to transgender or gender nonconforming people.
On Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order on the removal of “harmful executive orders and actions,” issued by Biden. This included orders that promoted LGBTQ+ rights and prevented gender identity and sexual orientation-based discrimination. Trump also passed executive orders to restrict health care for transgender adolescents and direct funding away from encouragement towards “gender ideology,” a term that has been repeatedly used by the administration to critique and invalidate transgender and nonbinary identities.
Other executive orders include rescinded protection of LGBTQ+ youth in education and action to end legal recognition of gender-nonconforming and transgender people under federal law. This includes the removal of protections for transgender women in shelters and discrimination of sex in housing and incarceration. During one of his campaign speeches, Trump said, “I will take historic action to defeat the toxic poison of gender ideology and affirm that God created two genders, male and female.”
However, executive orders do not have the power to override the U.S. Constitution and the LGBTQ+ rights that it protects.
“[An executive order] doesn’t have any legal power,” Dean of Gender Studies and Feminism Deborah Banner said. “It’s like an official announcement that is public but doesn’t legally compel anyone to do anything. But it does send a very public message to all of the states.”
Despite threats to LGBTQ+ rights under the Trump administration, Banner emphasized the importance of knowing your rights.
“Use whatever rights you have to pro- test the removal of civil rights, or threatened removal of civil rights, instead of conceding in advance,” Banner said.
