The Supreme Court affirmed marriage equality in the Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015. It legalized same-sex marriage nationwide and required all 50 states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Gallup shows 70% of Americans support marriage equality, and that support comes from all faiths and political backgrounds. The percentage of LGBTQ adults in the U.S. reached an all-time high of 7.6% last year, according to a recent Gallup report.

In 2016 Donald Trump stated both his support for and his opposition to marriage equality and the Obergefell decision. Trump also indicated his support for appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn the Obergefell decision, and Justice Clarence Thomas has called for decisions on marriage equality, contraception, and the decriminalization of same-sex relationships to be reconsidered.

In 2022 President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act. The landmark legislation:

• Requires the federal government to recognize marriages between two individuals if the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed
• Requires every state to grant the full faith and credit to legal marriages performed in other states, regardless of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of the individuals involved
• Officially repealed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman
• Provides significant protections that would remain even if the Supreme Court were to overturn the Obergefell
• The legislation passed with bipartisan support in Congress and is one of the first pieces of Congressional legislation explicitly protecting LGBTQ people.
  
  

This year voters in several states, including California, Colorado, and Hawaii, will vote on repealing anti-marriage state constitutional amendments or will vote on enshrining marriage equality in state constitutions. Such measures would provide more safety to same-sex couples and our families. This is urgent for our communities following the promise by extremist Supreme Court justices after the decision in Roe v. Wade to attack our families and marriages next.

Project 2025 is a presidential transition plan and a government in waiting, spearheaded and organized by the far-right Heritage Foundation, and with 100 coalition partner organizations, many of which are well-known for pushing anti-LGBTQ policy, legal efforts, and harmful rhetoric, accompanied by Christian nationalism. The project is a 180-day playbook of regulations and executive orders that could be signed and implemented by the next president upon taking office, a database of potential appointees, and an online “education academy” to train appointees in its conservative tenets.

Among policies areas and plans in Project 2025 are:

• Eliminating LGBTQ rights
• Eradicating federal funding for DEI programs
• Purging the government of apolitical civil servants
• Eliminating the checks and balances built into three branches of government in favor of expanded control by the executive branch
• Ending reproductive freedom and replacing the Department of Health and Human Services with the “Department of Life”
• Replacing the Department of Homeland Security with a 100,000-worker-strong immigration department, militarization of the border and an end to refugee programs
• Fundamentally altering American diplomacy in favor of anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ agendas and abandoning international organizations and traditional diplomatic and security alliances
• Stripping away non-discrimination policies
• Restricting or eliminating health care for transgender people and ending anti-discrimination rules based on gender identity and sexual orientation in the Affordable Care Act
• Restricting participation and expand discrimination in the military including banning transgender people and people with HIV
• Closing the Department of Education.
• Enforcing discrimination against transgender students
• Promoting an extremely restrictive view of gender and racial identities in education, removing LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum and policies while compelling adherence to strict definitions of gender that exclude transgender students and staff.
• Exporting anti-LGBTQ hatred by ending the Department of State’s LGBTQ equality initiatives in Africa, where laws such as Uganda punish same-sex activities with possible death sentences.
• End the separation of church and state
• Limit or eliminate the free press’s access to the White House.
  
  

For more on Project 2025, read here.

The percentage of LGBTQ adults in the U.S. reached an all-time high of 7.6% in 2023, according to a recent Gallup report. Gallup began measuring the U.S. LGBTQ population in 2012, when 3.5% of respondents identified as part of the community. In the intervening years there has been a consistent increase. Attitudes, policies, and laws that affect LGBTQ people affect a significant portion of the population in the United States.

A record number of non-LGBTQ Americans support equal rights for the LGBTQ community. GLAAD’s Accelerating Acceptance study shows that an overwhelming majority of non-LGBTQ Americans now believe that LGBTQ people should have the freedom to live their life and not be discriminated against, and that schools should be a safe and accepting place for all youth. Support for LGBTQ equal rights in America among non-LGBTQ people is now at an all-time high. Any narrative claiming otherwise, goes against a statistical supermajority of consensus, public opinion, and American values. Major findings:

• A 96% supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans agree that schools should be a safe and accepting place for all youth.
• A 91% supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans agree that LGBTQ people should have the freedom to live their life and not be discriminated against
• An 84% supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans support equal rights for the LGBTQ community
  
  

GLAAD’s study also directly correlates how the epidemic of anti-LGBTQ legislation and online hate leads to higher levels of real-world harm for LGBTQ people, including but not limited to discrimination and violence.

Attitudes broadly changing for the better in the United States have also been met with a rise in extremist hatred. Multiple authoritative sources have documented a significant escalation in anti-LGBTQ extremism, hate groups, protests, violence, and discriminatory policies and link them directly to the rhetoric and actions of Donald Trump and his administration after he took office in 2017.

Since June 1, 2023, GLAAD documented at least 106 anti-LGBTQ incidents targeting government entities, such as elected officials, state capitols, and city halls. In the same timeframe GLAAD documented 482 anti-LGBTQ incidents tied to known extremist groups. These include white supremacist groups, including the Proud Boys, Patriot Front, the White Lives Matter network, the Goyim Defense League, and the Active Club network. Other groups specifically focus on anti-LGBTQ action, like Gays Against Groomers and Moms for Liberty.

Prior to Pride Month 2024, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a warning that foreign terrorist groups could target U.S.-based Pride events. And the State Department issued a warning for terrorism taking place at international Pride events.

From April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024, GLAAD documented 1,073 anti-LGBTQ incidents nationwide. This represents a 201% increase from the 356 incidents recorded from 2022–2023, a result of both the heightened hate and extremism facing the LGBTQ community and improved data collection practices by researchers. Patterns affecting targets of anti-LGBTQ incidents were also documented, with 185 incidents targeting educational facilities and staff (up 461%); 181 incidents targeting drag events and performers (up 31%); 85 incidents targeting government buildings and officials (up 286%); and 27 incidents targeting health care facilities and providers (up 17%). Three new metrics, not measured previously, found that 180 incidents specifically targeted Pride flags and other LGBTQ symbols; 92 incidents targeted corporations publicly supporting the LGBTQ community; and 68 incidents targeted LGBTQ-affirming religious institutions.

Since January 1, 2024, GLAAD documented 456 anti-LGBTQ incidents. This includes the tragic murders of John Walter Lay, a gay man from Tampa, Florida, and Tayy Dior Thomas, a Black trans girl from Mobile, Alabama. GLAAD also tracked 131 bomb threats during this time period, the majority of which targeted drag story hours and corporations like Planet Fitness which are overtly inclusive of trans people.

GLAAD can provide additional examples or more data on hate and extremism on request.

The current story of book bans is interwoven with the story of the skyrocketing number of legislative proposals targeting LGBTQ people, especially transgender and nonbinary youth.

Like bills targeting health care, drag performance, pronouns, and public spaces, book bans baselessly and disingenuously purport to be about protecting children and parents’ rights, when their true intent is aimed at limiting the rising visibility and acceptance of LGBTQ youth, and removing parents’ rights to make private health care decisions for their families, or determine what their own children can read.

According to the American Library Association, there were 1,247 demands to censor library books and resources in 2023. The number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching 4,240 unique book titles. The vast majority of these bans target books by and about LGBTQ people and all people of color.

And a new PEN America report, Banned in the USA: Narrating the Crisis, documents more than 4,000 instances of book banning during the first half of the current school year—more than in the entire previous 2022–2023 school year. PEN America has documented more than 10,000 bans over the last two and a half years (July 2021 to December 2023). 2024 represents a record high for book bans.

Florida is the most affected state, with 3,135 bans across 11 school districts. Other states with significant bans include Wisconsin (481 bans), Iowa (142 bans), and Texas (141 bans).

Moms for Liberty (M4L), an anti-LGBTQ extremist group that bills itself as a so-called “parental rights” organization, is a driving force behind this alarming trend targeting books about LGBTQ people, people of color, and race and racism. The “parental rights” they claim to support don’t include the rights of parents who are LGBTQ or people of color, or parents of LGBTQ children. GLAAD is tracking M4L’s anti-LGBTQ record and ties to national anti-LGBTQ groups. The group self-reports more than 130,000 members in county-specific chapters across 48 states.

Since June 1, 2023, GLAAD has documented 189 anti-LGBTQ incidents targeting schools, colleges, and universities, as well as specifically going after educators, students, or schoolboards.

Some states are fighting back against bans. Minnesota’s governor joins leadership in Illinois, California, and more recently Maryland in passing intellectual freedom protection that ensures library staff control over the book and material selection process. Several other states are currently reviewing or have previously weighed similar bills to varying degrees of success.

For more on Moms for Liberty and book bans, read here.

More than 500 state bills have been proposed nationwide this year targeting LGBTQ Americans, including bans on health care for transgender people, even though the care is supported by every major medical association. Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine vetoed his state’s ban on transgender health care, saying he visited children’s hospitals, talked with patients, parents and providers who told him this care saves lives. He said, “Parents have looked me in the eye… they told me that their child is only alive because of the gender affirming care that they have received.”

Every major medical association and leading world health authority supports health care for transgender people and youth. They are also increasingly speaking out against the disinformation being spread by opponents of this care. (30+ statements here).

Efforts to ban and criminalize this care are not based on medical or scientific expertise, or research that shows how this care improves mental health and well-being and reduces suicidal ideation.

Many of the candidates for the Republican nomination for president campaigned on anti-transgender issues including Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Viviek Ramaswamy, Ron Desantis, and others (their records are here). Since June 1, 2023, GLAAD documented 37 anti-LGBTQ incidents either targeting transgender care providers / facilities, or using transgender health care as justification for their attack.

In March GLAAD released the findings of a poll gauging motivation and top issues ahead of the 2024 general election in November. 53% of both registered and likely 2024 voters say they would oppose “a political candidate [who] speaks frequently about restricting access to health care and participation in sports for transgender youth.”

Many of the same states banning health care for transgender people have also passed abortion bans since the U.S. Supreme Court stripped the Constitutional right to abortion as it overturned the landmark Roe v Wade decision. Concerningly, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling that overturns “Chevron deference” is having an impact on the Biden administration’s new anti-discrimination rules in health care for transgender Americans. The ruling will endanger equal access to health care services regardless of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Reporters covering this care, including existing or proposed legislation and political rhetoric, have an obligation to note that every major medical association supports health care for transgender people and youth as safe and lifesaving.

Abortion is a top issue for LGBTQ voters according to GLAAD’s poll. Many lesbians, bisexual and queer women, nonbinary and intersex people, and transgender men can and do get pregnant—and can and do seek reproductive health care, including abortion services. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, igniting a series of state bans on abortion around the country, a wave of activism, and a heightened area of media coverage. Since June 1, 2023, GLAAD documented 21 anti-LGBTQ incidents that included both anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ sentiment.

GLAAD’s voter poll shows:

• 53% of both registered and likely 2024 voters say they would oppose “a political candidate [who] speaks frequently about restricting access to health care and participation in sports for transgender youth.
• All voter categories overwhelmingly agree that “Republicans should stop focusing on restricting women’s rights and banning medical care for transgender youth and instead focus on addressing inflation, job creation, and health care costs.” 94% of LGBTQ voters, 76% of registered voters, 76% of likely 2024 voters, and 82% of swing voters agree.
  
  

The Biden-Harris administration’s record on reproductive health care includes:

• Signing executive orders to expand access to affordable health care and reverse Trump-era abortion restrictions and to ensure broadened access to contraception and abortion services
• Urging Congress to enshrine abortion rights into federal law
• Opposing state restrictions, such as the one in Arizona
• Making abortion a central issue. The campaign website includes the statement, “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris believe that reproductive health care decisions should be made by women with their doctors, not politicians. After Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade and ripped away nearly 50 years of women’s rights, Joe and Kamala took action to protect and strengthen reproductive health care access amid ongoing MAGA Republican attacks.”
  
  

The Trump policies and efforts against access to reproductive health care include:.

• Nominating three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, creating a majority to overturn Roe v. Wade, endangering patients, families, and safe medical care across the country.
• Bragging that he is responsible for overturning Roe: “If it weren’t for me, with Roe v. Wade, you wouldn’t even be talking about this stuff. For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it and I’m proud to have done it,” Trump said.
• Recommitting to criminalizing abortion telling Time that he would not intervene in decisions to monitor or prosecute pregnant people.
• Refusing to say whether his second administration would enforce the Comstock Act, an 1873 “zombie law” that bans the mailing of birth control and abortion medication.
• Trump claims his current position on abortion is that “now that we have abortion where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.” In the same video he made the baseless claim that Democrats want to legalize the “execution” of babies that were already born, which is not true.
  
  

Find GLAAD guidance for media covering reproductive health care here.

The GLAAD Accountability Project monitors and documents individual public figures and groups using their platforms to spread misinformation and false rhetoric against LGBTQ people, youth, and allies. Some groups have misleading names inferring unwarranted expertise or credibility, when their main focus is advocating against LGBTQ people, and some claiming to be grassroots efforts have ties to national organizations with long histories opposing LGBTQ Americans.

Profiles of public officials including many candidates for office in 2024, and many organizations can be found at glaad.org/GAP.

GLAAD is monitoring the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights, as well as the record of former President Donald Trump, both in and out of office. Very unusually in the 2024 election, both major party candidates have a record as U.S. President upon which to assess their campaign promises.

President Joe Biden has made more than 350 moves to include, protect and support LGBTQ Americans including the most number of out federal judicial nominees, protective policies, signing the Respect for Marriage Act into law to secure the marriages of LGBTQ couples and all couples of different races, and statements of support year-round for LGBTQ people and equality. The Biden record is documented in the GLAAD Biden Accountability Tracker.

The Trump Administration’s anti-LGBTQ record is extensive and GLAAD has tracked more than 218 attacks on the LGBTQ community including instances of harmful and discriminatory policy as well as demeaning and inflammatory rhetoric.

In 2020, Ric Grenell, a loyalist to then-President Donald Trump, made the false claim that “President Trump is the most pro-gay president in American history. I can prove it.” In July 2020, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany made a similar claim that the Trump administration has a “great record” with the LGBTQ community. In fact, the Trump administration (2017–2021) was marked by a series of anti-LGBTQ policies and actions that significantly undermined the health, well-being, and legal protections of LGBTQ individuals in the United States as well as globally. Donald Trump enacted the greatest number of anti-gay and anti-transgender policies of any U.S. president.

Trump’s partial record includes:

• Banning transgender service members from the military against the expert advice of military leaders, medical authorities, and budget analysts.
• Opposition to the Equality Act which passed the House of Representatives in 2019 and would ensure comprehensive federal protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, health care, housing, education, public accommodation, and other areas. As of the most recent data, 27 U.S. states have no state-level nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ Americans. This means that in these states, LGBTQ individuals can face discrimination in various areas such as employment, housing, health care, education, and public accommodations without any legal recourse at the state level.
• Appointing anti-LGBTQ judges. During his presidency, Donald Trump significantly reshaped the federal judiciary by appointing numerous judges, across all levels of the judicial system, with records of opposition to LGBTQ rights.
  • Supreme Court: Trump appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, all of whom have demonstrated their anti-LGBTQ bias, been associated with anti-LGBTQ organizations, refused to specify their view on LGBTQ rights, or refused to disclose actions taken during previous presidential administrations. All three also voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, endangering patients, families and safe medical care across the country.
  • Circuit Courts: Nearly 40% of Trump’s confirmed federal appellate judges have demonstrated a history of anti-LGBTQ bias.
  • District Courts: Trump nominated several district court judges with poor records on LGBTQ rights, including Matthew Kacsmaryk, Jeff Mateer, and Wendy Vitter.
• Appointing anti-LGBTQ activists to nearly every government agency to roll back protections and target LGBTQ people seeking an education, health care, housing, jobs, and service in the military.
• Opposing workplace protections: The Trump administration multiple times asked the Supreme Court to legalize workplace discrimination against LGBTQ people in amicus briefs that argued that federal prohibitions do not extend to protect individuals from being fired or because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
• Promoting religious exemptions to gut civil rights protections: The Trump administration used departments of State, Justice, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development to push religious exemptions at the expense of LGBTQ rights.
• Numerous anti-LGBTQ actions in health care: Including rolling back anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ patients; redefining sex discrimination to exclude gender identity, removing gender identity protections from HHS regulations; allowing refusal of care based on religious or moral objections; limiting insurance coverage for transgender individuals; and restricting access to gender-affirming care.
• Kicking people living with HIV out of the military because of their status.
• Numerous anti-LGBTQ actions in education: Withdrew protections for transgender students; ignored civil complaints from transgender students; refused to rule out federal funding for schools that discriminate against LGBTQ students; rescinded Title IX rules related to schools’ obligations to address sexual harassment, including sexual violence which disproportionally affects LGBTQ people; used Title IX to discriminate against trans students.
• Allowing emergency shelters to deny access to transgender and gender nonconforming people.
• Cutting HIV and AIDS funding in budget proposals by $1.35 billion from PEPFAR, the U.S. government program that fights AIDS abroad.
• Placing transgender incarcerated persons in the wrong prison exposing them to increased risk of assault.
• Allowing foster care programs to discriminate against LGBTQ, religious minority, and women foster parents while accepting tax-payer funds
• Eliminating information on LGBTQ rights, mentions, and representation on government websites.
• Refusing visas to unmarried same-sex partners of diplomats including those come from countries where same-sex marriage is illegal.
• Refusing LGBTQ asylum-seekers fleeing violence.
• Refusing to condemn anti-LGBTQ violence in Brunei and Chechnya including death penalties
• Withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council over LGBTQ issues
• Removing LGBTQ identities questions from the census.
  
  

Since leaving the Oval Office in 2021, Donald Trump has made multiple claims about his plans for the treatment of LGBTQ people and others in his potential second term in office. Some of his positions are below.

• The Trump campaign website includes formal policy plans called “Agenda 47″ that includes a pledge titled “President Trump’s Plan to Protect Children From Left-Wing Gender Insanity.” The Advocate reports, “Trump promised to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors at the federal level, and ‘cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.’ He also promised to ban transgender athletes from competing on teams that match their gender identity.… Trump stated that he ‘will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female—and they are assigned at birth.’ He then claimed that being transgender was ‘invented’ by the ‘radical left,’ though he did not use the term ‘transgender’ once throughout Agenda 47.”
• Trump has promised to defund schools that support transgender students’ safety. Targeting vulnerable students makes them and the entire school community LESS SAFE. Stripping funding makes all communities LESS PROSPEROUS.
• Trump has pledged a national ban on mainstream consensus health care that allows transgender people to live and thrive.
• Trump said, “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions.
  
  

Voters and the media can review the full record to view the Trump record.