At a news conference on August 8, 2024, former President Trump criticized the record of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, chosen last week as Vice President Kamala Harrisā running mate, including Walzās support for LGBTQ people (record here). Trump claimed Walz was āheavy into the transgender world,ā without detail on what he meant, or recognition that transgender people are part of everyoneās world.
The rhetoric matched Trumpās comments to Fox News the day before: āHeās very heavy into transgender. Anything transgender he thinks is great, and heās not where the country is on anything.āĀ
GLAADās Voter Poll shows a majority of voters of all parties oppose candidates who campaign against transgender people.
Trumpās own record shows he has heavy interest in targeting and restricting transgender people and plans to continue this record if elected.
Trumpās 2024 platform on transgender Americans includes:
- Outlawing gender-affirming care for minors at the federal level, according to his āAgenda 47ā
- Using the government to investigate and potentially halt trans health care. āUpon my inauguration, I will direct the FDA to convene an independent outside panel to investigate whether transgender hormone treatments and ideology increase the risk of extreme depression, aggression and even violence,ā said Trump.
- Ceasing āall programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.ā
- Cutting federal funding for inclusive schools, including āany school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto the lives of our children.ā
- Banning transgender athletes from competing on teams that match their gender identity
- Asking āCongress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female ā and they are assigned at birth.ā
- Pledging in his āAgenda 47ā titled āPresident Trumpās Plan to Protect Children From Left-Wing Gender Insanity.ā The Advocate reports, āTrump promised to, and He also promised to.ā¦ Trump stated that he āwill ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female ā and they are assigned at birth.ā
- Rolling back Title IX protections for transgender students enacted in April 2024 by the U.S. Department of Education āon day one,ā if heās reelected. Trump said: āWeāre going to end it on day one. Donāt forget, that was done as an order from the president. That came down as an executive order. And weāre going to change itāon day one itās going to be changedā¦. Itāll be terminated.ā
- Declaring November 5 as āChristian Visibility Dayā after a baseless complaint about Transgender Day of Visibility coinciding with Easter in 2024. Previously Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt issued a statement calling it āappalling and insultingā that Biden āformally proclaimed Easter Sunday as āTrans Day of Visibility.ā ā
Trumpās rhetoric on transgender Americans includes:
- Claiming that being transgender was āinventedā by the āradical left,ā though he did not use the term ātransgenderā once throughout Agenda 47.ā
- Repeating baseless disinformation about trans women and girls participating in sports including in response to the Paris Olympics and at the Republican National Convention. GLAADās Voter Poll shows a majority of voters in all parties oppose āa political candidate [who] speaks frequently about restricting access to health care and participation in sports for transgender youth.ā
- Criticizing Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine for vetoing a state bill banning essential health care for transgender youth and banning trans youth from school sports, spread disinformation about the care and school sports. DeWine had said his veto was based on conversations he had with parents, patients and providers who told him how the care saves lives. Trump said in a Truth Social post: āDeWine has fallen to the Radical Leftā¦ What was he thinking. The bill would have stopped child mutilation, and prevented men from playing in womenās sports. Legislature will hopefully overturn. Do it FAST!!!ā Ohio hospitals and providers, along with hundreds of others, had testified that they do not perform surgeries on youth, and Ohioās school sports association has long had policies to ensure inclusive participation of transgender students.
- Mocked a Canadian weightlifter in an extended campaign event skit to mock and misgender transgender women in sports, claiming he will āend this on day oneā if heās re-elected.
- Said of transgender athletes at a rally, āWho would even think that you can allow this? Who would say that this is okay? These people are sick. They are derangedā¦. Itās astonishing how passionately people react to that. When you talk about tax cuts, they remain calm. But when you mention transgender issues, everyone goes wild. Who would have imagined five years ago that they wouldnāt even know what āitā meant?ā
- Accused Democrats of āpushing the transgender cultā on children.
- Vowed to crack down on ātransgender insanityā and pledged to ārevoke every Biden policy promoting the disfigurement of our youthā at the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign. He said that he would ākeep men out of womenās sportsā if re-elected president after he last year misgendered transgender athlete Lia Thomas. He added: āI will immediately sign an executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other racial, sexual or political content on our children.ā
- Made multiple false claims about gender-affirming care, tweeting a so-called āPlan to Protect Children from Left-Wing Gender Insanity.ā Every major medical association and world health authority supports gender affirming care; statements here including from the American Academy of Pediatrics: āThere is strong consensus among the most prominent medical organizations worldwide that evidence-based, gender-affirming care for transgender children and adolescents is medically necessary and appropriate. It can even be lifesaving. The decision of whether and when to start gender-affirming treatment, which does not necessarily lead to hormone therapy or surgery, is personal and involves careful consideration by each patient and their family.ā
- In a speech announcing third run for president, baselessly targeted schools for āradical civics and gender insanityā (without defining what those are) and stated inaccurate and inflammatory promises such as āWe will not let men, as an example, participate in womenās sports.ā
- Recommitted to his 2017 tweeted ban against transgender Americans serving in the military: āAs commander-in-chief, I will get Bidenās radical left ideology out of our military.ā President Biden reversed the tweeted order in 2021 in one of his first acts as President. 70% of Americans support allowing transgender Americans to serve in the U.S. armed forces. 66% of active-duty soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines support serving alongside transgender personnel.
- Invited activist Riley Gaines on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) as he baselessly claimed that āleft-wing lunaticsā encourage unfair competition in sports. Gaines has profited by spreading disinformation about transgender people and athletes after tying for 5th place with a transgender swimmer at the NCAA championships. Gaines went on to endorse Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president over Trump.
- Told that he did not believe transgender women and girls should compete on sports teams consistent with their gender identity, referring to trans female athletes as ābiological males,ā a term often used by anti-trans activists to suggest transgender people are not who they say they are.
- Trumpās Department of Education pressures New Hampshireās Franklin Pierce University to drop its trans-inclusive policy in athletics. The university agreed to rescind its policy permitting transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity to avoid an investigation by the DOEās Office of Civil Rights. A civil rights complaint triggering the threat of an investigation was filed by āConcerned Women for America,ā a noted anti-LGBTQ hate group.
- Tiffany Trump appears at a campaign event, falsely claiming her father supports the LGBTQ community, ignoring his and his administrationās record of hundreds of attacks against the community. She also omits the āTā when saying āLGBTQ.ā The āTā stands for Transgender. LGBTQ advocates see Tiffany Trumpās omission as another example of President Trump and his supporters’ failure to recognize and support trans people and their existence.
- Nominates Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court. In her speech, Barrett says she adheres to the same judicial philosophy as the late justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia, who dissented in cases advancing LGBTQ rights, called the Obergefell decision āa threat to American democracy,ā and Barrett has similarly stated views against marriage equality, defended dissenters of Obergefell, and delivered speeches paid for by anti-LGBTQ groups. She was vetted for the Trump administration by The Federalist Society, which has argued against every major LGBTQ policy proposal including extending Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to include LGBTQ workers, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, hate crimes legislation, ādonāt ask, donāt tell,ā and transgender accommodations.
- Education Secretary Betsy DeVos vows to withhold federal funds from Connecticut school districts that participate in athletic conferences allowing transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity. The move to withhold about $18 million intended to help schools desegregate could have national implications for both transgender athletes and students of color.
- The lead U.S. foreign aid agency proposes a new policy on gender and womenās empowerment that eliminates any mention of transgender people or contraceptives, running counter to its own long-standing practices in deciding what programs to support. The draft policy released by the U.S. Agency for International Development doesnāt use the acronym LGBT or the words ālesbian,ā āgay,ā ābisexual,ā ātransgenderā or āidentityā at all. Gender experts and advocates said the new policy falls far short of providing the expertise the agency needs to address gender issues in development.
- Jenna Ellis, Trump campaign senior legal adviser and the presidentās personal lawyer, misgenders Pennsylvaniaās Health Secretary. Ellis, who has no apparent medical degree, uses Twitter to mock other efforts to control the pandemic that has killed 163,000 people on President Trumpās watch. Ellis also condemns same-sex marriage and transgender identity, and has tweeted to promote conversion therapy.
- Three years after President Trump tweeted out a ban on transgender people in the military āin any capacity,ā the White House says heās sticking with the policy. Each of the military service chiefs testified before Congress in 2018 they had seen no evidence of transgender service disrupting unit cohesion during the period of open service and a Dept. of Defense poll found about two-thirds of active-duty soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines support serving alongside transgender personnel.
- New details emerge from a proposed Housing and Urban Development rule limiting access for transgender people in single-sex homeless shelters. According to text from a leaked document obtained by Vox, the rule would allow federally-funded shelters to judge a personās physical characteristics, such as height and facial hair, in determining access to the shelter. Factors to be considered include āthe presence (but not the absence) of facial hair, the presence of an Adamās apple, and other physical characteristics which, when considered together, are indicative of a personās biological sex.ā
- Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany falsely claims President Trump has āa great recordā with the LGBTQ community. Trump has an abysmal record of attacks on LGBTQ people, including implementing a ban on transgender people in the military, rolling back access to healthcare and homeless shelters, and defending discrimination in multiple cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Housing and Urban Development announces new rule allowing single-sex homeless shelters to turn away transgender people, continuing a trend of dismantling protections for trans people across the federal government. HUD has acknowledged there is no evidence that transgender residents pose a risk to cisgender residents.
- Trump Justice Department files āstatement of interestā supporting Idahoās new law barring transgender female athletes from competing consistent with their gender identity, a law that allows genital and genetic screenings. More than 500 college student-athletes and professional stars Megan Rapinoe, Billie Jean King, Jason Collins and Reggie Bullock, join a petition to the NCAA asking to move championships out of Idaho in response to the discriminatory law.
- Dept. of Housing and Urban Development considers rolling back a rule requiring homeless shelters to safely accommodate transgender people.Ā
- Protections rolled back for transgender Americans seeking healthcare under a new rule announced by HHS, four years to the day of the Pulse nightclub attack.Ā
- The Trump administration threatens to withhold funding from states that allow athletes to compete under the gender with which they identify.Ā
- U.S. Navy grants a waiver to transgender naval officer, allowing her to remain in uniform. Itās the first waiver granted since the administration began enforcing its surprise ban against transgender service members. The government is expected to file its response to the suit filed by the naval officer in federal court.
- The Trump Department of Justice filed a āstatement of interestā in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, which stated that it has a āsignificant interestā in ensuring that Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is interpreted as excluding transgender female athletes and applying only to cisgender females.
- While touring San Franciscoās HUD office, Secretary Ben Carson reportedly describes conversations about homeless women being traumatized if ābig, hairy menā walk into shelters identifying as women. The Washington Post reports Carson said single-sex shelters should have the discretion to turn away transgender people.
- Trumpās Justice Department files a court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the nationās highest court to block transgender Americans from having nationwide workplace protections.
- During his visit to the United Kingdom, President Trump continued to use discredited information about transgender Americansāincluding categorizing trans people as drug usersāas a means to justify his ban on allowing transgender Americans from openly serving in the countryās armed forces.
- The Trump Administration announced a new policy stating transgender Americans would not be guaranteed health care protections under the Affordable Care Act, potentially harming 1.5 million trans Americans.
- The Trump Administration announced plans to rescind Obama-era policy which asked homeless shelters receiving federal dollars to grant transgender Americans the ability to use facilities according to their gender identity.
- President Trump and his administration implement its ban barring transgender Americans from openly serving in the countryās armed services.
- During a House Education Committee hearing, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos acknowledged that the administrationās choice to rescind the Obama-era bathroom guidanceāwhich added protections for transgender studentsāexposed trans students to additional harassment and discrimination in schools across the nation.
- In a late night decision, the Trump Administration announces plans to implement its ban on transgender service members from openly serving in the countryās armed forces according to their gender identity, impacting more than 13,000 service members who are currently enlisted.
- During a House Armed Services Subcommittee hearing on the administrationās ban on transgender services members from serving openly in the armed forces, Trump Administration officials used derogatory phrases such as āa transgender,ā but they also called gender-confirmation surgery a ādisqualifying surgery,ā comparing it to having cancer, heart disease, or diabetes.
- Trump meets with Ginni Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and anti-LGBTQ group Groundswell at the White House. According to news reports, Ms. Thomas led a meeting where participants denounced transgender Americans and claimed the historic, nationwide marriage equality ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court was āharming the fabric of the United States.ā The Supreme Court is on the verge of deciding whether to take up a case regarding Trumpās ban on allowing transgender service members from serving in the nationās armed forces.
- The Trump Administration asks the United States Supreme Court to circumvent federal appeals courts and issue a ruling on transgender Americansā right to serve in the military.
- The Department of Justice writes in a brief to the Supreme Court that it is legal to discriminate against transgender employees based on their gender identity, saying that banning sex discrimination under Title VII in the workplace does not extend to transgender workers.
- The Department of Health and Human Services proposes to change the legal definition of sex under Title IX, requiring individuals to identify according to their gender assigned at birth. This change in legal definition would remove nondiscrimination protections for transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals.
- The Trump Administration rolls back protections for incarcerated transgender people that were intended to mitigate their exposure to sexual assault and abuse, allowing the Bureau of Prisons to āuse biological sex as the initial determination for designationā when placing trans people for housing, screening, and programs and services.
- Reporting in Slate reveals that the Trump Administration worked closely with Tony Perkins, head of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council to draft their latest policy to implement Trumpās ban on transgender soldiers from openly serving in any capacity within the United States armed forces.
- President Trump announces a reworked attempt to ban all transgender people from serving in the military in response to the implementation of his original policy being frozen by four different federal courts who declared it likely to be unconstitutional.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development defends the Trump Administrationās decision to remove guidelines from its website intended to prevent anti-LGBTQ discrimination in homeless shelters by arguing that transgender women accessing shelters make people ānot comfortable.ā
- The Department of Education once again states that it is the Trump Administrationās position to refuse to protect transgender students denied access to bathrooms and lockers based on their gender identity, even when faced with court rulings reaffirming that transgender students are protected under Title IX.
- The Department of Education officially confirms they will not investigate or take action on any complaints filed by transgender students who are banned from restrooms that match their gender identity.
- Staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were instructed not to use the words ātransgender,ā āvulnerable,ā āentitlement,ā ādiversity,ā āfetus,ā āevidence-based,ā and āscience-basedā in official budget documents.
- In a Department of Justice memo, the Trump Administration reverses a policy that provided non-discrimination protections for transgender people in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- Trump nominates Gregory Katsas, who worked behind the scenes to promote the implementation of the trans military ban and revoke federal guidelines that protect transgender students from discrimination, to the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Circuit of D.C.
- Trump officially directed the Pentagon to move forward with his ban on transgender service members openly serving in the U.S. Military. The discriminatory policy is to take effect on March 23, 2018.
- An official White House webpage directs readers to an article published by the anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation that calls being transgender a āpsychological disorder.ā
- Trump announces he will ban transgender servicemembers from serving in āany capacityā in the U.S. military, threatening to fire 15,000 currently serving troops.
- Reporting reveals Vice President Mike Pence advocated for the removal of healthcare benefits for transgender service members within the U.S. military behind closed doors.
- Reports revealed President Trump hired anti-transgender activist Bethany Kozma to the Office of Gender Equality and Womenās Rights at the US Agency for International Development.
- An internal memo obtained from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights reveals guidelines to dismiss complaints about bathroom access filed by transgender students.
- Trump rescinds Title IX protections for transgender students in our nationās schools.
- As early as May 2016, candidate Trump vows to rescind federal directives that protect transgender people in schools and healthcare.