Memo: Trump on LGBTQ Rights

November 13, 2024

Erasing LGBTQ Freedoms by Rolling Back Protections, Mandating Discrimination, and Weaponizing Federal Law Against Transgender People


Following the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017, we witnessed a sustained, years-long effort to erase protections for LGBTQ people across the entire federal government.

This included an all-of-government effort to “define ‘transgender’ out of existence” by eroding protections for transgender students and workers, and weakening access to gender-affirming health care most transgender people already struggled to access.

While the Biden administration reversed many of those attacks, Trump himself has promised to go even further if re-elected to the White House. Based on his own campaign promises — and the detailed policy proposals of Project 2025 — we can expect a future Trump administration to deploy three tactics against LGBTQ rights.

Removing Anti-Discrimination Protections:

First, a new Trump administration would reinstate and significantly escalate the removal of anti-discrimination policies. Indeed, Trump recently said that he would eliminate protections for transgender students “on day one” of his presidency. We can expect the federal government to rescind all federal regulations, rules, and other policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and to assert that federal civil rights statutes don’t cover anti-LGBTQ discrimination either. This could strip LGBTQ people of protections against discrimination in many contexts, including employment, housing, education, health care, and a range of federal government programs.

Requiring Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination

Second, a new Trump administration would not only roll back existing protections, but proactively require discrimination by the federal government wherever it can, including by banning transgender people from serving openly in the Armed Forces and blocking gender-affirming medical care for transgender people in federal health care programs such as Medicare. The results would be devastating, as thousands of transgender people would immediately lose access to needed medical care.

Weaponizing Federal Law Against Transgender People

Third — and most ominously — if Trump returns to the White House, we expect him to try to weaponize federal law against transgender people across the country. He plans to use federal laws — including laws meant to safeguard civil rights — as a cudgel to override critical state-level protections, arguing that state laws that protect transgender students violate the federal statutory rights of non-transgender students. Additionally, a second Trump administration would take the extreme position that the Constitution entitles employers to discriminate against LGBTQ people based on their religious beliefs, notwithstanding state nondiscrimination laws. And, shockingly, it would try to erase transgender people from public life entirely by using federal obscenity laws to criminalize gender nonconformity.

The ACLU will use every tool at its disposal to fight these dangerous plans, including taking the Trump administration to court wherever we can. Litigation will be essential, but it will not be enough. We will engage on every advocacy front, including mobilizing and organizing our network of millions of ACLU members and activists in every state to work to protect LGBTQ people from the dangerous policies of a second Trump administration.

Use the expandable cards below to learn about specific threats and our potential responses.

Overall Response

The ACLU, ACLU of Maine, and our counterparts in all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico are prepared to protect civil rights and liberties in Congress, in the courts, and in communities throughout Maine and the nation.

Overall Response

Threat: Erasing Federal LGBTQ Protections

Trump plans to remove federal non-discrimination protections by rescinding regulations and interpreting federal laws to eliminate such protections.

Erasing Non-Discrimination Protections

Threat: Discrimination Against Transgender People

Trump would go beyond policies that make discrimination legal by also mandating discrimination.

Banning Gender Affirming Care

Threat: Barring Transgender People From the Military

Just as Trump did in 2017, a second administration would reverse policies allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military.

Barring Transgender People from the Military

Threat: Weaponizing the Law to Discriminate

Trump would likely take the position that federal law and the Constitution require states and private actors to discriminate against transgender people.

Weaponizing Federal Law

Criminalizing Gender Non-Conformity

A second Trump administration would not be able to implement such a policy without Congress, making it likely that fair-minded people could prevent such a horror.

Criminalizing Gender Non-Conformity

Conclusion

Across the country in recent years, transgender people and their families have been targeted by a relentless assault on their rights, their safety, and their fundamental freedom to be themselves.

Conclusion

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Download the complete memo in the PDF at the bottom of this page or here.