Trump order aims to end federal support for gender transitions for those under 19

https://apnews.com/article/trump-transgender-transition-executive-order-301e4130233b411311978f66f455f1c4

So much for rights for adults to make their own medical decisions. I guess it is fine for cis adults to have boob jobs and cis adult men can do what they want with their penises but not transitioning people. Well not women either. Seems only straight cis males can have control over their bodies and sex organs.

But what I think this is about is how trans people passing for the gender they are upsets fundamentalist men. It screws with their idea that god created men and women and that is just how it has to be, what you are assigned at birth. Right now people who do not suffer going through the wrong puberty don’t get the wrong secondary sex characteristics. Look at the changes in boys when puberty hit. Most boys facial features change and broaden, shoulders get wider, they develop deeper voices, and of course their bodies grow hair along with increasing the size of the sex organs. All things trans girls do not want their bodies to look like and will fight all their lives trying to change and make go away. It will be much harder for them to pass as the women they identify as. It will make them look much less of the idea most people have of how women should normally look. Much easier for them to be singled out. Some changes will never be able to mask or make go away.

Same with trans men. They will be forced to go through female puberty. They will grow boobs they hate, wider hips, along with other body changes including to their sexual organs. All things they hate. Some things will make it harder to transition, again making it harder for them to pass as the men they are.

And again that seems to be the plan. It seems to really upset the fundies that they get all hot about a woman that they then realize is a trans woman. I do know a straight man who had no interest in the male sex organ who started dating an attractive woman, she turns out to be trans who had not had bottom surgery. As they say, love conquers all and they are living very happily together. Hugs

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President Donald Trump arrives to speak about the economy during an event at the Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

By ZEKE MILLER, GEOFF MULVIHILL and HANNAH SCHOENBAUM

Updated 9:03 PM EST, January 28, 2025

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at cutting federal support for gender transitions for people under age 19, his latest move to roll back protections for transgender people across the country.

“It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” the order says.

The order directs that federally-run insurance programs, including TRICARE for military families and Medicaid, exclude coverage for such care and calls on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice.

Medicaid programs in some states cover gender-affirming care. The new order suggests that the practice could end, and targets hospitals and universities that receive federal money and provide the care.

The language in the executive order — using words such as “maiming,” “sterilizing” and “mutilation” — contradicts what is typical for gender-affirming care in the United States. It also labels guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health as “junk science.”

On his Truth Social platform, Trump called gender-affirming care “barbaric medical procedures.”

Major medical groups such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics support access to care.

Young people who persistently identify as a gender that differs from their sex assigned at birth are first evaluated by a team of professionals. Some may try a social transition, involving changing a hairstyle or pronouns. Some may later also receive puberty blockers or hormones. Surgery is extremely rare for minors.

“It is deeply unfair to play politics with people’s lives and strip transgender young people, their families and their providers of the freedom to make necessary health care decisions,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson.

The order encourages Congress to adopt a law allowing those who receive gender-affirming care and come to regret it, or their parents, to sue the providers.

It also directs the Justice Department to prioritize investigating states that protect access to gender-affirming care and “facilitate stripping custody from parents” who oppose the treatments for their children. Some Democratic-controlled states have adopted laws that seek to protect doctors who provide gender-affirming care to patients who travel from states where it’s banned for minors.

Lambda Legal promised swift legal action.

Michel Lee Garrett, a trans woman whose teenage child only partially identifies as a girl and uses they/them pronouns, said such policies aim to erase trans people from public life but will never succeed. Her child has not elected to pursue a medical transition, but the mother from State College, Pennsylvania, said she won’t stop fighting to preserve that option for her child and others.

“I’ll always support my child’s needs, regardless of what policies may be in place or what may come … even if it meant trouble for me,” Lee Garrett said.

For Howl Hall, an 18-year-old freshman at Eastern Washington University, taking testosterone not only changed his body but dramatically improved his experience with depression. With that treatment now under threat, Hall said he’s concerned that getting off testosterone would hurt his mental health.

“I would be alive, but I wouldn’t be living,” Hall said. “I wouldn’t be living my life in a productive way at all. I can guarantee that I would be failing all of my classes if I was even showing up to them.”

The push is the latest by Trump to reverse Biden administration policies protecting transgender people and their care. On Monday, Trump directed the Pentagon to conduct a review that is likely to lead to them being barred from military service. A group of active-duty military personnel sued over that on Tuesday.

Hours after taking office last week, Trump signed another order that seeks to define sex as only male or female, not recognizing transgender, nonbinary or intersex people or the idea that gender can be fluid. Already that’s resulted in the State Department halting issuing passports with an “X” gender marker, forcing transgender people to apply for travel documents with markers that don’t match their identities.

Trump said he would address these issues during his campaign last year, and his actions could prove widely divisive.

In the November election, voters were slightly more likely to oppose than support laws that ban gender-affirming medical treatment, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for minors under the age of 18 who identify as transgender, according to AP VoteCast. About half of voters, 52%, were opposed, but 47% said they were in favor.

Trump’s voters were much more likely to support bans on transgender care: About 6 in 10 Trump voters favored such laws.

“It’s very clear that this order, in combination with the other orders that we’ve seen over the past week, are meant to not protect anyone in this country, but rather to single-mindedly drive out transgender people of all ages from all walks of civic life,” said Harper Seldin, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.

Seldin said the ACLU is reviewing the order “to understand what, if anything, has immediate effect versus what needs to go through continued agency action.”

Even as transgender people have gained visibility and acceptance on some fronts, they’ve become major targets for social conservatives. In recent years, at least 26 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Most of those states face lawsuits, including one over Tennessee’s ban that’s pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Republican-controlled states have also moved to keep transgender women and girls from competing in women’s or girls’ sports and to dictate which bathrooms transgender people can use, particularly in schools.

“These policies are not serving anyone,” said Shelby Chestnut, executive director of the Transgender Law Center. “They’re only creating confusion and fear for all people.”

_________________________________________________

Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Schoenbaum from Salt Lake City. Associated Press writers Carla K. Johnson and Hallie Golden in Seattle and Linley Sanders in Washington contributed reporting.

ZEKE MILLER

Zeke is AP’s chief White House correspondent

GEOFF MULVIHILL

Mulvihill covers topics on the agendas of state governments across the country. He has focused on abortion, gender issues and opioid litigation.

HANNAH SCHOENBAUM

Schoenbaum is a government and politics reporter based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She also covers general news in the Rockies and LGBTQ+ rights policies in U.S. statehouses.

New French guidelines show doctors overwhelmingly support gender-affirming care

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/new-french-guidelines-show-doctors-overwhelmingly-support-gender-affirming-care/

This study is grand. If you read it you will see it debunks the trans haters talking points of lower bone minerals and the complete shown to be false Cass report.

The guidelines also directly push back against claims in the U.K. Cass Review that puberty blockers affect cognition, revealing that they have “no negative effect” on any measures of intelligence or academic success.

The guidelines even provide a definitive rebuke to the claim that puberty blockers cause lower bone mineral density (BMD) by saying, “Trans youth have an average BMD before the onset of puberty that is lower than that of the general population, regardless of treatment. This is probably related to the consequences of dysphoria: less physical activity, eating disorders, and/or poor dietary balance.” After taking the hormones that align with their gender identity, the guidelines’ authors note that trans patients’ BMD is “comparable to that of the experienced gender.”

The guidelines strongly oppose a beloved tactic among anti-trans activists, dubbed the “wait-and-see” approach, wherein medical providers render no care to see if the patient still desires transitional care — the approach has been likened to conversion therapy. The approach, also known as “gender exploratory therapy,” is swiftly criticized by the guideline’s authors who state that it “does not reduce psychological distress.” Instead, it “increases the risk of committing suicide and can affect psycho-affective and cognitive development.”

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The medical guidelines contradict numerous conclusions from the UK’s infamous Cass Review.

By Mira Lazine Friday, December 27, 2024

Medical professionals in France just came out in strong support of gender-affirming care for transgender minors, according to independent trans journalist Erin Reed.

The French Society of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetology released a set of guidelines that can be considered the first consensus to come out of France for gender-affirming care. The guidelines were thoroughly conducted: Each section of the review is broken up up into separate categories evaluated by smaller groups of study authors who incorporated input from external experts. The final guidelines were also refined by the broader group of authors.

Related:

Anti-trans laws cause increase in suicide attempts according to massive new study

Trans youth in states that enacted anti-trans laws had up to a 72% increase in suicide attempts.

The authors and studies in the report unequivocally support gender-affirming care, backing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy for trans minors. The approach to care they suggest is individualized and evidence-based, promoting the right of trans youth to explore their gender identity and find where they fit in on their own time. By allowing youth to transition early, some elect to skip future surgeries entirely, the study said.

The guidelines strongly oppose a beloved tactic among anti-trans activists, dubbed the “wait-and-see” approach, wherein medical providers render no care to see if the patient still desires transitional care — the approach has been likened to conversion therapy. The approach, also known as “gender exploratory therapy,” is swiftly criticized by the guideline’s authors who state that it “does not reduce psychological distress.” Instead, it “increases the risk of committing suicide and can affect psycho-affective and cognitive development.”

A study published in September shows that anti-trans laws increase the likelihood of suicide by upwards of 72%, suggesting that attempts at implementing these bans on care and advocacy for the “wait-and-see” approach are only harming transgender individuals.

The guidelines even provide a definitive rebuke to the claim that puberty blockers cause lower bone mineral density (BMD) by saying, “Trans youth have an average BMD before the onset of puberty that is lower than that of the general population, regardless of treatment. This is probably related to the consequences of dysphoria: less physical activity, eating disorders, and/or poor dietary balance.” After taking the hormones that align with their gender identity, the guidelines’ authors note that trans patients’ BMD is “comparable to that of the experienced gender.”

The guidelines also directly push back against claims in the U.K. Cass Review that puberty blockers affect cognition, revealing that they have “no negative effect” on any measures of intelligence or academic success.

The French guidelines are especially detailed in that they contain information on how trans youth can alleviate dysphoria as well. They discuss binding techniques, how transfeminine people can tuck, and how to best treat youth in varying stages of their transition.

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson ROASTS MAGA Moron Patrick Bet David In Debate

This is a really great video on covid vaccines and why people needed to take them. Tyson explains the social contract, explains why with the first vaccines you might still get a new covid strain, that the vaccine was well studied, and the risk for not taking it. Wonderful video to show every anti-vaxxer. The host is a person on the right, well known right wing media person who pushes the right’s talking point. So him being fully and quickly having his stupidity over the issue displayed to him, his ass handed to him on his own program, with someone who could hold their own and not let the host over talk them or belittle them. It is grand. Hugs

BEST OF 2024: Dr. Peter J. Hotez – MR Live | 12/31/24

This is a must watch video. It totally destroys the anti-vaccine groups and the Idea that vaccines cause autism. This is a medial Scientist researcher with the greatest knowledge in the field of study and he has an autistic daughter. He knocks down and shows proof of the lies of the anti-vaccine people. He explains how it all became a political issue and power, and how it is killing people. Hugs

Some Sam Seder clips

This one address the mistaken idea that anti-trans stuff worked to win the presidency for tRump. In fact it was not a factor according to surveys however the only ones talking about it were the tRump people. Harris never mentioned trans except for one time saying that they followed the law on treating trans prisoners with the hormone care they were prescribed or needed before incarceration. Again it is the law and tRump also did it in his first term. Hugs

More on the trans issues and the bathroom ban for trans people in the capital. Trans issues in the 2022 midterms showed that trans issues was a losing issue for them. It was the same this election. The larger problem is the democrats being too cowardly to stand up for the abused minority. Hugs

We hear about the genocide by Israel of the Palestinians. He talks about hate on the internet by right wing forced paid for and encouraged by people who want to normalize this level of violence and convince people it is good to be this bloodthirsty. Hugs

Pass it on please

If you see this post, can you please help spread this information?#ASafeChoice is a referral network of physicians who provide medication abortion services ACROSS THE US.People everywhere need to know about this option. These doctors have capacity to help more women! Let’s spread word! ❤️✊
— Nick Knudsen (@nickknudsenus.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T21:00:04.736Z

Texas AG sues to shutter ‘nuisance’ homeless center

Texas AG sues to shutter ‘nuisance’ homeless center

This is the hyper Fundamentalist Christian who is radically against trans people and the entire LGBTQ+. He has made it his mission in political life to push bigotry and hate to anything he thinks the Christian god hates while trying to promote Christianity as a state religion at every turn. So here he is trying to shut down a homeless shelter. Really what Jesus would ask his followers to do, right? No this is not based on religion or faith, this is about profit and who gives him money. He pushes religious stuff because his main benefactor and political protector is a billionaire fundamentalist Christian preacher who thinks the government should force every person to be a Christian with his views. And what about the homeless shelter … Well local business don’t like the look or the congestion so more donations to remove them … Get the point. The point is the wealthy people who support this … Ultra Christian simply don’t like the poor around. They want them to go away and never be seen. Hugs.

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Paxton accuses the Austin, Texas, charity of facilitating drug use and violent incidents near an elementary school.

Christina van Waasbergen / November 26, 2024

In this June 22, 2017, file photo, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a news conference in Dallas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to shut down an Austin, Texas, homeless center, calling the charity a public nuisance.

The Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center says it’s the largest provider of homeless services in Travis County. According to its website, the center provides a number of services, including physical and mental health care, substance abuse care, harm reduction, housing interventions and benefits enrollment. The center has received over a $1 million from the city of Austin, according to Paxton’s complaint.

“In South Austin, a once peaceful neighborhood has been transformed by homeless drug addicts, convicted criminals, and registered sex offenders,” Paxton says in the complaint, filed in Travis County District Court. “These people do drugs in sight of children, publicly fornicate next to an elementary school, menace residents with machetes, urinate and defecate on public grounds, and generally terrorize the surrounding community.”

In his complaint, Paxton notes the center’s location across the street from an elementary school. The Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on the lawsuit that the school has been forced into lockdown repeatedly due to violent behavior from people receiving services at the center.

Paxton also takes issue with the center allowing a clean syringe distribution program on its property, which he says amounts to facilitating drug use. Part of a “harm reduction” philosophy, clean syringe programs aim to help people who are already using intravenous drugs do so more safely. In Texas, such programs operate in a legal grey area, as they are not authorized by the state and Texas law criminalizes the possession of drug paraphernalia.

“Drug activity and criminal behavior facilitated by this organization have hijacked an entire neighborhood,” Paxton said in a statement. “By operating a taxpayer-funded drug paraphernalia giveaway next to an elementary school, this organization is threatening students’ health and safety and unjustly worsening daily life for every single resident of the neighborhood. We will shut this unlawful nuisance behavior down.”

Paxton seeks an injunction requiring the center to close for a year and prohibiting it from conducting operations within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or youth center. But in a statement, the center’s executive director Mark Hilbelink said the services will continue.

“It is regrettable that Attorney General Paxton took this route, especially during the week of Thanksgiving, but Sunrise intends to keep offering services to people in our community who need them,” Hilbelink said in a statement. “We are committed to being a good neighbor. We will continue to work, every day, to support Joslin Elementary School, our neighborhood, and our entire community.”

He also noted the center is a ministry of Sunrise Community Church and is therefore protected by the First Amendment, the U.S. Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“These laws have been tested in court on multiple occasions, always with the same result: churches are protected to do work that is an expression of their religious practice,” Hilbelink said.

Texas Board Won’t Review Pregnancy-Related Deaths

Texas Board Won’t Review Pregnancy-Related Deaths

November 26, 2024 Christianists, Republicans

The Washington Post reports:

The Texas committee that examines all pregnancy-related deaths in the state will not review cases from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after Texas’s near-total abortion ban took effect, leaving any potential deaths related to abortion bans during those years uninvestigated by the 23 doctors, medical professionals and other specialists who make up the group.

Leaders of the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee said the change was made to “be more contemporary” — allowing them to skip over a backlog of older cases and review deaths closer to the date when they occurred, and therefore offer more relevant recommendations to policymakers. At least three women have died in Texas because of delays in care related to the abortion bans, according to reporting from ProPublica.

Read the full article.

https://twitter.com/CAKitchener/status/1861428581366215066

Texas bill would reclassify abortion drugs as controlled substances

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/25/abortion-texas-pills-controlled-substance/

The bill is modeled after a Louisiana law that doctors say has created chaos for other gynecological issues best treated by these drugs.

By Eleanor Klibanoff

Nov. 25, 20245 AM Central

Credit: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

A Louisiana law that reclassified abortion-inducing drugs as controlled substances has made it more difficult for doctors to treat a wide range of gynecological conditions, doctors say.

Now, a similar proposal has been filed in Texas.

Texas Rep. Pat Curry, a freshman Republican from Waco, said the intent of House Bill 1339 is to make it harder for people, especially teenagers, to order mifepristone and misoprostol online to terminate their pregnancies. Doctors in Louisiana say the measure has done little to strengthen the state’s near-total abortion ban, but has increased fear and confusion among doctors, pharmacists and patients.

“There’s no sense in it,” said Dr. Nicole Freehill, an OB/GYN in New Orleans. “Even though we kept trying to tell them how often [these medications] are used for other things and how safe they are, it didn’t matter. It’s just a backdoor way of restricting abortion more.”

These medications are often used to empty the uterus after a patient has a miscarriage, and are commonly prescribed ahead of inserting an intrauterine device. Misoprostol is also often the best treatment for obstetric hemorrhages, a potentially life-threatening condition in which women can bleed to death in minutes. Since the Louisiana law went into effect, hospitals have taken the medication off their obstetrics carts and put them in locked, password-protected central storage.

One hospital has been running drills to practice getting the medications to patients in time, and reported, on average, a two minute delay from before the law went into effect, the Louisiana Illuminator reported.

“In obstetrics and gynecology, minutes or even seconds can be the difference between life and death,” Dr. Stella Dantas, president of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, said in a statement after the Louisiana law passed. “Forcing a clinician to jump through administrative hurdles in order to access a safe, effective medicine is not medically justified and is, quite simply, dangerous.”

Curry said these restrictions won’t stop doctors from prescribing these medications when necessary, but will stop the “wide misuse” of the drugs to circumvent the state’s near-total abortion ban.

Curry said he consulted with the author of the Louisiana law, as well as OB/GYNs in Texas to draft the bill. He said the doctors who have criticized the legislation are raising these concerns as a “smokescreen” because they don’t want more restrictions.

“I understand that. We don’t need or want all kinds of regulations,” he said. “Especially as Republicans, regulations should not be high on our list, but in this case it’s a necessary evil given the situation.”

Texas roots for a Louisiana law

In March 2022, Mason Herring, a Houston attorney, spiked his wife’s water with misoprostol to force her to have an abortion. Catherine Herring was pregnant with the couple’s third child, a daughter who was born 10 weeks premature. She survived, but has significant developmental delays, according to the Associated Press.

Mason Herring was charged with felony assault to induce abortion, and pled guilty to injury to a child and assault to a pregnant person. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years of probation.

Catherine Herring’s experience led her brother, Louisiana state Rep. Thomas Pressly, to file a bill that would have made it a crime to coerce someone into having an abortion.

But at the last minute, the bill was amended to also reclassify abortion-inducing drugs as controlled substances, according to the Louisiana Illuminator, leaving hospitals and doctors scrambling to comply with the new restrictions. The state health department advised storing the medication in a locked area on the crash cart, which at least some hospitals have said is not feasible.

“We had to rework how we utilize misoprostol across our hospital systems,” Freehill said. “Labor and delivery, pharmacy, nursing staff, you name it, they were all involved with figuring out how to stay within the law but still use these medications that we need access to.”

It’s rare for a state to decide on its own to classify a drug as a controlled substance. Most commonly, the federal government decides which medications should be “scheduled,” based on their medical usefulness and the potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs, like heroin, have no medical use and are often used recreationally; Schedule IV and V are medications that are useful but have a potential for abuse, like Xanax or Valium.

There are enhanced penalties for having a controlled substance without a prescription, and increased restrictions on how doctors can dispense them. Pharmacists must report any prescriptions for controlled substances to the state Prescription Monitoring Program, and doctors are required to check the database before prescribing certain controlled substances. Law enforcement also has access to that database.

Prescription monitoring has been key to combating the opioid epidemic by identifying doctors who were overprescribing and patients who were getting prescriptions from multiple providers. But with so much political attention on mifepristone and misoprostol as abortion-inducing drugs, doctors are worried about scrutiny for frequently prescribing these common medications.

“We had to fix a problem that wasn’t broken,” said Freehill. “There’s no reason for it to be Schedule IV. It’s not something people abuse. It’s not something people can become addicted to. It’s extremely safe.”

A group of Louisiana health care providers recently filed a lawsuit arguing the law discriminates against people who need mifepristone and misoprostol for other conditions, and challenging whether the last minute amendments to the bill were proper. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has said the new restrictions are clear and should not delay care. Those who “have attempted to sow confusion and doubt,” she said in a statement, “profit from misinformation.”

When the law first went into effect, Anna Legreid Dopp, senior director of government relations for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, told CNN that the group expected other states to consider similar measures.

“Almost immediately, our members raised concern that if this is being done in one state, it can easily be a template for other states to use it,” Dopp said.

Restrictions on medication

Curry, who recently won a special election to fill the seat long held by Republican Rep. Doc Anderson, said Pressly and Herring have offered to come testify in support of his bill this session. He anticipates it getting wide support from his fellow lawmakers.

Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, conservative groups have turned their attention to restricting access to abortion-inducing medications. A group of anti-abortion doctors filed a lawsuit to revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, which the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately rejected.

Curry said there are reasons to keep these medications on the market beyond abortion, but they need tighter restrictions.

“You can lie about your age, you can lie about your name, you can lie about your address, there’s no verification whatsoever,” he said, referring to online prescribers. “And it gets shipped to a 15-year-old girl, a 13-year-old girl.”

It is already a crime to mail abortion-inducing medications in Texas, and many of the online pharmacies operate in a legal gray area outside U.S jurisdiction. Others are working in states that have “shield laws” that protect doctors’ ability to prescribe and mail pills into states that have banned abortion. None of these interstate and international legal questions have been tested in court with regards to abortion.

Freehill said she would encourage Texas doctors to learn from what has happened in Louisiana as they prepare to advocate against this bill this session.

“There’s a lot of education that needs to be done surrounding what this means and what these drugs are really used for,” she said. “I don’t know that we would have been able to sway people, even with more time, but we can at least educate on why this is completely inappropriate and really governmental overreach.”

Donald Trump’s grim LGBTQ+ views explored – could he reverse hard-won civil rights?

https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/11/06/project-2025-donald-trump-lgbtq/

Donald Trump has been outspoken against the LGBTQ+ community. (Getty)

At the time of writing, it seems almost inevitable that Donald Trump will become the 47th President of the United States, meaning LGBTQ+ rights are under serious threat.

The election was one of the closest in history according to voting polls over the past few weeks, with polling group FiveThirtyEight reporting that Harris just barely reached a 1.2 per cent lead on Trump a day before the results were counted.

The Trump-Vance Republican ticket has been vocal and incredibly negative about the LGBTQ+ community in recent weeks, constantly pushing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and promising to enact abhorrent policies.

The last Trump presidency led to a roll-back of protections and anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ+ people, and it doesn’t look as if a second term would be any different if he is re-elected, based on campaign promises and the detailed policy proposals outlined in Project 2025 – although Trump has tried to distance himself from the right-wing proposals.

In anticipation of a Trump win, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) suggested a new Trump administration would “reinstate and significantly escalate the removal of anti-discrimination policies… proactively require discrimination by the federal government [and] weaponize federal law against transgender people across the country”.

So, what are Trump’s views about LGBTQ+ rights, and what exactly might he do?

Erase federal non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people

Trump’s first term was extremely detrimental to the rights and protections of LGBTQ+ people, and a second term could roll back protections once again.

LGBTQ+ people might no longer be guaranteed to be free of discrimination across several federal government programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, housing and employment.

This would embolden and increase discrimination towards all queer people, but towards trans people in particular. Already, 53 per cent of LGBTQ+ people have reported experiencing discrimination because of their sexual orientation and 18 percent due to their gender identity.

Exclude openly transgender people from the military

The first Trump administration reversed policies allowing trans people to serve in the military, and it is not difficult to foresee the president doing so again.

Another ban on trans people in the military would force out active-duty transgender service personnel as well as prevent trans people enlisting in the future.

This is despite a report in 2016 revealing that trans-inclusive policies have “little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness”.

In fact, trans-inclusive military policies could benefit all active service members by “creating a more inclusive and diverse force.”

Trans people could once again be banned from serving. (Getty)

Withhold federal funding if school officials affirm transgender students

Trump has said he would act to stop any school district introducing or maintaining trans-inclusive policies and practices.

This would include withholding federal funding that allow trans students to use toilets and changing rooms that align with their gender identity, or even acknowledging that they are trans, as well as arguing that trans-inclusive policies violate the rights of cisgender pupils.

Discrimination against trans students, causing significant harm to the community as a whole, would be the likely result of such a move.

Many trans children and teenagers already report feeling unsafe going to school because of bullying and mental-health distress.

Ban trans women from women’s sports

During a recent campaign rally, Trump said he was not going to “let” trans women compete in sporting events at all if he becomes president again.

He said invoking the ban would “not [be] a big deal”, citing recent sporting events in which trans women competed against cisgender women, claiming that the trans athlete had a competitive edge over their opponent.

“Physically, from a muscular standpoint… look at what’s happened in swimming. Look at the records that are being broken,” he said.

Prohibit gender-affirming care in federal healthcare programmes

Gender-affirming medical care is likely to be non-existent in a second Trump term. He has already pledged to “end left-wing gender insanity” and would outlaw federal funding for reassignment surgeries.

His website also promises that on his first day in the Oval Office, he would issue an executive order “instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition, at any age”.

The administration would also probably deny Medicaid funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, forcing medics to deny trans people the care they require.

Access to healthcare for more than 100,000 transgender youngsters in 24 states has already been halted in the past three years.

Allow employers to discriminate against LGBTQ+ staff

A second Trump administration could bring in provisions to allow employers to discriminate against LGBTQ+ members of staff based on the boss’ stated religious beliefs, a reversal of existing non-discrimination laws.

This would not require congress or bipartisan support, and could be pushed through using an executive order from the president.

The administration could go one step further to prevent state and local governments enforcing non-discrimination laws if the defendant says the discrimination was based on religious belief.

Laws protecting LGBTQ+ people and other minorities from discrimination based on protected characteristics might also disappear.

Donald Trump has continued to target the LGBTQ+ community. (Getty)

Criminalize gender-non-conformity in public life

Project 2025 – a hard-line right-wing blueprint for a future Republican president – suggests the use of criminal laws to punish gender-non-conformity in public life, with pornography being the crux of the issue.

The authors of the plan, the Heritage Foundation, inexplicably link pornography with “transgender ideology” and argue that neither has a “claim to First Amendment protection” and therefore should be outlawed.

“The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned,” they demand. “Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders, and telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be [closed down].”

That means any discussion of transgender people in schools and libraries could be criminalized, and trans people might face jail time for being themselves.

Trump would only be able to put this into practice with congress’ approval and there is unlikely to be bipartisan support for such a law, but even the slim possibility is terrifying.

Finally – could gay marriage be reversed?

Same-sex marriage supporter Vin Testa, of Washington DC, waves a rainbow pride flag near the Supreme Court. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Unfortunately, yes, it could.

After crucial abortion legislation Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, many people said that next, they would be coming for Windsor and Obergefell and Lawrence – three rulings that unlocked a national right to same-sex marriage.

Whether a same-sex couple could marry varied by state before 2015. With its 5-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court extended the full federal right to marry to all same-sex couples.

So would – or could it be taken away? Many people think that the Supreme Court wouldn’t dare. Same-sex marriage is now too accepted in American society, they argue. It would cause “legal chaos.”

However, it remains the case that some justices, particularly Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, appear to be itching to overturn Obergefell. In 2022, Justice Thomas said the Supreme Court “should reconsider” its past rulings codifying rights to contraception access, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.

It’s important to remember in all of this Pride is a protest, and it continues to be. We can fight any and all of these attacks by standing up, speaking out and refusing to stay silent.