Every Move the Trump Administration has Made on LGBTQ Issues in Its First 100 Days
In under four months, Trump 2.0 has instituted the most anti-trans policies of any president in American history.
In President Donald Trump’s first 100 days since taking office for a second term on Jan. 20, he has signed a litany of anti-trans and anti-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) executive orders (EOs) and has ramped up his anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. These orders represent a solidification of his campaign, where he and the GOP spent roughly $215 million on anti-trans ads, more than five times the amount they spent on ads focused on the economy.
While polls show that 74% of voters believe transgender people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, the president doesn’t seem to be slowing down when it comes to upending the community’s rights and freedoms. Here’s everything that’s happened:
Jan. 20, 2025
During his inauguration speech, Trump says, “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
Later that day, Trump signs "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government," an EO that redefines "sex" in federal law to mean biological sex at conception. It also eliminates federal recognition of transgender identities, blocks gender self-ID on federal documents, ceases federal funding for gender-affirming care and restricts trans people’s access to bathrooms, prisons, shelters and other government facilities that match their gender identity.
Trump also signs “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” an EO that orders federal agencies to terminate DEI mandates, policies and programs. This order repeals an EO put in place by the Biden administration that created initiatives for the federal government to combat systemic barriers related to hiring on the basis of race, religion, income, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability.
“[We’re] a party of common sense, you know, we don’t want to have men playing in women’s sports. We don’t want to have transgender operations for everyone,” Trump says at the Liberty Ball party that evening.
Jan. 21, 2025
Trump signs “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” another EO that revokes several prior policies going back to the 1960s, which mandated affirmative action for federal contractors and required that they take steps to comply with nondiscrimination laws.
The order violates the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which extended Title VII protections to transgender people on the basis of sex in the workplace.
The same day, nearly all LGBTQ and HIV-focused content and resources, including the White House’s equity report—which includes a fact sheet with information about LGBTQ Pride Month and about how to expand access to HIV prevention and treatment—are deleted from the White House’s website. In addition, the Department of State removes its LGBTQ rights page and the Department of Labor removes its LGBTQ workers page.
Immediately after, GLAAD releases a statement: “President Trump claims to be a strong proponent of freedom of speech, yet he is clearly committed to censorship of any information containing or related to LGBTQ Americans and issues that we face.”
Jan. 22, 2025
Trump issues a memo ordering all federal employees working in diversity offices and programs to be put on paid leave.
Jan. 27, 2025
Trump signs "Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness," an EO that bans trans and nonbinary people from military service. The order cites concerns over unit cohesion, mental and physical readiness and overall military effectiveness.
Jan. 28, 2025
Trump signs “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” an EO that bars federal funding for gender-affirming care for minors and directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and related agencies to restrict insurance coverage for such treatments under Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.
Hours after Trump signs the order, Uncloseted Media speaks with six LGBTQ kids.
“It is terrifying that I could be forced to not find something that works for me because Trump thinks that everyone who receives gender-affirming care wants to mutilate their bodies,” Genna, a 15-year-old South Carolinian, told us.
In response, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and health care strategist for Lambda Legal, says, "In seeking to deny transgender youth the medically sound and well-established health care that they need, this administration could put thousands of vulnerable young lives at risk. It is an outrageous overreach of government power that reveals its cruel absolutism."
Jan. 29, 2025
Trump signs “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” an EO that directs federal agencies to withhold funding from schools that “indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies.” The order threatens to investigate teachers who “unlawfully facilitat[e] the social transition of a minor student.”
“This executive order, which seeks to eliminate federal funding for schools that teach concepts related to gender identity and [DEI], undermines the professional autonomy of educators and disregards the diverse needs of our student population,” Kevin Vick, the president of the Colorado Education Association, says in response to the EO.
Jan. 31, 2025
Federal workers are ordered to remove their gender identity and pronouns from their email signatures.
Feb. 3, 2025
Mentions of LGBTQ people are erased or minimized across federal government websites, with a particular focus on trans and intersex people. The Department of State no longer lists trans people in its travel safety recommendations, only mentioning the “LGB” community.
The morphing of the LGBTQ acronym to exclude transgender people is also applied on the State Department’s “Resources for LGB Prospective Adoptive Parents” page, the “Social Security for LGBQ People” page and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which asks about LGBTQ-related bullying.
Feb. 5, 2025
Trump signs “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” an EO that prohibits transgender women and girls from competing on collegiate-level female school sports teams.
“We’re a party of common sense. … We don’t want men playing in women’s sports. We don’t want to have transgender for everybody. … That’s how we won the election in such a big manner,” Trump says at a summit two weeks later.
Feb. 13, 2025
Under the direction of Trump’s EO "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government," the National Park Service removes references to transgender and queer rights and history, including from the Stonewall National Monument pages. The “T” and “Q” from LGBTQ are also dropped in instances where the acronym is present.
Protesters gather at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City the next day to voice their outrage. In an interview with Uncloseted Media, Stacy Lentz, co-owner of The Stonewall Inn, calls the removal a blatant attempt to rewrite history and exclude the very people who led the fight for equality.
Feb. 14, 2025
A court order forces the Trump administration to reupload the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey that includes references to LGBTQ bullying.
However, the administration adds a note to the page that says:
Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female. The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department rejects it.
Claiming compliance with Trump’s EO, the Department of Education modifies its Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form to remove nonbinary gender options.
The U.S. withdraws from the United Nations LGBTI Core Group, which pledges to support LGBTQ and intersex rights by “work[ing] within the United Nations framework on ensuring universal respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, specifically [LGBTI] persons, with a particular focus on protection from violence and discrimination.”
“In line with the president’s recent executive orders, we have withdrawn,” says a State Department spokesperson.
Feb. 18, 2025
When a reporter asks Trump why his advisors are concerned with the Associated Press using terms like “gender-affirming care” in their reporting, Trump responds: “I do think that some of the phrases that they want to use are ridiculous, and I think, frankly, they’ve become obsolete, especially in the last three weeks.”
March 1, 2025
A federal judge in Seattle extends a block on the Trump administration's executive orders that aim to withdraw federal funding from institutions that provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth. The contested orders sought to cut funding for programs promoting "gender ideology" and to penalize medical providers offering treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to individuals under 19.
U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King found that these measures could unjustly restrict necessary medical treatments for transgender and cisgender youth alike.
“In fact, its inadequate ‘means-end fit’ would prevent federally funded medical providers from providing necessary medical treatments to transgender youth that are completely unrelated to gender identity,” she wrote. “For example, a cisgender teen could obtain puberty blockers from such a provider as a component of cancer treatment, but a transgender teen with the same cancer care plan could not.”
March 9, 2025
Trump reposts a story from the right-leaning newspaper The Washington Times that features a pink triangle being crossed out.
Pink triangles were used by the Nazis to publicly identify gay men in Germany. Though AIDS activists have attempted to reclaim the image, Trump’s repost marks the third time his administration has emulated Nazi imagery.
In a statement to USA TODAY, the president and CEO of Keshet, an LGBTQ Jewish nonprofit, says: "Such actions are frighteningly reminiscent for both LGBTQ+ people and Jews of our long histories of persecution, which have included tactics we're seeing today, such as scapegoating, book bans, destruction of information access, and control/confiscation of identity documents like passports."
March 18, 2025
A federal judge blocks Trump’s executive order, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness.”
“The Court knows that this opinion will lead to heated public debate and appeals,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes wrote in her opinion. “In a healthy democracy, both are positive outcomes.”
April 2, 2025
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services updates its policy to recognize only two biological sexes for immigration benefit requests and official documentation.
This policy shift reverses previous efforts to accommodate nonbinary and transgender individuals, as it removes the “X” gender marker option from immigration forms.
The policy change has drawn criticism: “By denying trans people the right to self-select their gender, the government is making it harder for them to exist safely and with dignity. This is not about ‘common sense’—it is about erasing an entire community from the legal landscape,” says Bridget Crawford, Director of Law and Policy at Immigration Equality.
April 3, 2025
The Trump administration cancels over 270 National Institutes of Health grants focused on LGBTQ health, totaling at least $125 million in unspent funds. The cancellations disrupt research on HIV testing and prevention, AIDs research, cancer, mental health and more.
April 2025
The Trump administration deports 238 Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvadorian maximum-security prison under the Alien Enemies Act, a law not used since World War II. The administration claims these individuals are affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang. Andry Hernandez Romero, a gay makeup artist seeking asylum, was one of the migrants who had no criminal record. Hernandez Romero vanished from U.S. custody before his asylum hearing and his lawyer asserts he was deported without due process.
“This is one of the most shocking things I could ever imagine happening to a client,” Hernandez Romero’s lawyer tells The Advocate.
April 9, 2025
The White House introduces a new policy that bars officials from responding to reporters who use pronouns in their emails, saying that the use of pronouns “ignore[s] scientific realities.”
April 16, 2025
The Trump administration sues the state of Maine for not complying with his executive order to ban transgender athletes from girls' and women’s sports. This occurs two months after Trump called out the state’s Governor Janet Mills after she said she would not comply with Trump’s EOs and would instead follow federal and state law. “See you in court,” Trump told the governor.
That same day, in a budget leak from HHS, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proposes terminating federal funding for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services. This program, initiated in 2022, has assisted over 1.2 million youths, offering vital crisis support inclusive of LGBTQ identities.
“Suicide prevention is about risk, not identity. Ending the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ youth specialized services will not just strip away access from millions of LGBTQ+ kids and teens – it will put their lives at risk,” says Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project.
April 22, 2025
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison files a lawsuit against the Trump administration in response to his EO that directs federal agencies to withhold funding from educational institutions allowing trans girls to participate in girls' sports. Ellison argues the order violates Title IX and the U.S. Constitution, as well as the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity. “Trump’s unconscionable attack is bullying, plain and simple,” Ellison says in a press briefing.
April 24, 2025
The Pentagon resumes providing medical care for transgender troops after a court order strikes down the restrictions—put in place by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—as unconstitutional.
April 2025
A 19th News poll finds that 49% of Americans believe politicians should not focus on transgender issues—a notable rise from 43% before the 2024 election. More Republicans than before the election say politicians should stay out of trans issues. Despite the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-trans policies, 59% of Americans support access to gender-affirming care for trans adults and 55% oppose laws restricting care for trans youth. The results highlight a growing disconnect between federal policies and public opinion on transgender rights.
With World Pride in D.C. just weeks away, the Kennedy Center cancels a week’s worth of events celebrating LGBTQ rights.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump writes, “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP.”
In response to the cancellation, June Crenshaw, deputy director of Washington’s Capital Pride Alliance, writes: “We are a resilient community, and we have found other avenues to celebrate. … We are finding another path to the celebration … but the fact that we have to maneuver in this way is disappointing.”
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