Trump and LGBTQ Americans
How Trump's policies targeted LGBTQ Americans, and the harm that followed
By Erik Gauger · Updated October 31, 2026
In his first term, Trump’s administration withdrew protections for transgender students, told the Supreme Court it was legal to fire workers for being gay or transgender, and moved to let health insurers, homeless shelters and publicly funded foster agencies turn LGBTQ people away. He announced on Twitter that transgender Americans could no longer serve in the military. In his second term, he signed orders on his first day back in office that erased transgender people from federal policy, and his agencies then cut their health care, their research, their history and their documents one by one.
This page records those policies, the harm researchers have since measured, and what Trump himself has said about LGBTQ Americans, quoted from transcripts and news reports. The harm includes studies linking anti-trans laws to worse mental health among transgender young people. It also documents attacks on LGBTQ Americans, but holds them to a strict standard: an attack is included only where there is a documented link to Trump or his rhetoric. National figures on anti-LGBTQ violence are shown for context and are not added to the toll.
On standards. This is not a partisan record: the same evidentiary rules apply whatever the politics of the victim or the perpetrator. Every entry links to court records, government data, published research or established news reporting, documented actions are kept apart from alleged motives, and recorded deaths apart from estimates. How this record is kept
The record, latest first
Anti-trans laws and suicide attempts among transgender teenagers: an estimate
Each year the laws are in force · Estimate from published research
Nineteen states, then Washington. Between 2018 and 2022, 19 states passed 48 laws aimed at transgender people: bans on their medical care, on school sports, on bathrooms. Most were passed by legislatures of Trump’s party, and in January 2025 he made the same restrictions federal policy. In 2024, researchers at The Trevor Project published the first study to measure what those laws did. Comparing more than 61,000 transgender and nonbinary young people in states that passed such laws with those in states that did not, they found that enacting the laws increased past-year suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary young people by 7 to 72 percent.
By January 2026, 382,800 transgender teenagers aged 13 to 17 lived in the 29 states with at least one such law. About 14 percent of transgender and nonbinary young people attempt suicide in a given year. Applied to those teenagers, the study’s range means roughly 3,600 to 28,400 more suicide attempts every year than there would have been without the laws.
Estimated harm: about 3,600–28,400 additional suicide attempts a year among transgender teenagers
How this estimate is made. 382,800 teenagers (Williams Institute) × a past-year attempt rate of about 14 percent (Trevor Project 2024 national survey), with the national rate adjusted down to remove the laws’ own effect, × the study’s 7 percent (low) and 72 percent (high) increases. It counts attempts, not deaths, and only teenagers 13 to 17, although the study found increases among young adults up to age 24 as well. The laws are state laws; the study did not measure Trump’s federal orders. This figure is shown on its own and is not added to the record’s totals of dead and injured.
Sources: Lee et al., Nature Human Behaviour (2024); The Trevor Project (study summary); Williams Institute (January 2026); Trevor Project 2024 National Survey.
Title IX protections for LGBTQ students struck from federal rules
September 28, 2026 · His administration’s policy
Washington, D.C. The Education Department formally rescinded the 2024 Title IX rule, which had read the law’s ban on sex discrimination in schools to cover sexual orientation and gender identity, and reinstated the rules from Trump’s first term without a public comment period. Courts had already struck down the 2024 rule, and the department had been enforcing the 2020 rules since January 31, 2025.
Sources: Education Week.
Transgender women sent toward men’s prisons, then cut off from their treatment
February 2025 – September 2026 · His administration’s policy
Federal prisons. Carrying out Trump’s first-week order, the Bureau of Prisons told more than a dozen of the 22 transgender women held in federal women’s prisons that they would be moved to men’s prisons; Judge Royce Lamberth blocked the transfers for the women who sued. In February 2026 the bureau adopted a new policy barring transgender inmates from hormone therapy, transition surgery and “social accommodations.” Lamberth barred that policy on August 26, 2026, and on September 28 the administration asked the Supreme Court to let it take effect.
Sources: The Marshall Project; SCOTUSblog.
Medicaid stops paying for transgender young people’s care
August 11, 2026 · His administration’s policy
Nationwide. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized a rule ending federal Medicaid and CHIP funding for puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for transgender minors, effective October 13. Young people already on hormones get funding for up to six months of tapering off. A second proposed rule, which would bar any hospital providing this care from Medicare and Medicaid altogether, had not yet been finalized.
Sources: Fierce Healthcare.
The Supreme Court upholds bans on transgender girls in school sports, with the administration’s backing
June 30, 2026 · His administration’s position
Washington, D.C. By 6 to 3, the Court upheld Idaho and West Virginia laws that bar transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s school teams, ruling that Title IX allows teams defined by biological sex. Trump’s Solicitor General had filed in support of the states.
Sources: Gay City News; Case summary.
Washington moves to shut down transgender youth care at hospitals
December 18, 2025 · His administration’s policy
Washington, D.C. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. signed a declaration that gender-affirming treatment for minors falls outside accepted medical standards, calling it “malpractice,” and Medicare and Medicaid officials announced proposed rules to bar hospitals that provide it to anyone under 18 from both programs. The FDA sent warning letters to 12 makers and sellers of breast binders. By February 2026, STAT counted 42 hospitals and health systems that had paused or stopped some gender-affirming care for young people since January 2025, including at least three major children’s hospitals that closed their programs to all patients.
Sources: Spectrum News; STAT.
“Let’s just change their sex”
December 9, 2025 · In his own words
Pennsylvania. At a rally billed as a speech on affordability, Trump told supporters: “Transgender for every member of your family, if they’re not feeling well that night, let’s just change their sex.” He called gender-affirming care “mutilation.” Through 2025 he returned to the line “transgender for everybody” again and again: at a Cabinet meeting, at a press conference with Elon Musk, at an Oval Office event with Pfizer executives and at a homeland security roundtable.
Sources: PinkNews; The Advocate.
Transgender Americans lose the right to a passport that matches who they are
January – November 2025 · His administration's policy
Washington, D.C.. Following Trump's first-day order, the State Department stopped issuing passports with an X marker or a sex marker that differs from the one assigned at birth. A federal judge blocked the policy; on November 6, 2025, the Supreme Court let it take effect while the case continues. Transgender travelers now carry a federal document that outs them at every border crossing.
Sources: Reuters via GV Wire; AP via 6abc.
The Justice Department weighs taking guns from transgender Americans
September 2025 · Considered by his administration
Washington, D.C. After the shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, by a suspect reported to be transgender, senior Justice Department officials met to discuss barring transgender people from owning firearms, The Washington Post reported. A department spokesperson said it was “actively evaluating options” and that “no specific criminal justice proposals have been advanced at this time.”
Sources: FOX Local (KTVU).
Federal workers lose coverage for gender-affirming care
August 2025 · His administration’s policy
Nationwide. The Office of Personnel Management told insurers that beginning in 2026 the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which covers more than 8 million federal employees, retirees and family members, would no longer cover gender-affirming medical care. Counseling for gender dysphoria remained covered.
Sources: Human Rights Watch.
LGBTQ people deleted from the State Department’s human rights reports
August 2025 · His administration’s policy
Washington, D.C. Drafts of the annual country reports obtained by The Washington Post struck all references to LGBTQ people and crimes against them. Earlier reports had documented abuses such as state violence against gay men in Chechnya; the remaining descriptions of government abuses were softened.
Sources: Washington Blade; PinkNews.
The suicide hotline's line for LGBTQ young people goes dark
July 17, 2025 · His administration's policy
Nationwide. The administration ended the specialized option on the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for LGBTQ young people, the “Press 3” line run with The Trevor Project, which had answered nearly 1.3 million young callers since 2022. LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely as their peers to attempt suicide. A 2024 study in Nature Human Behaviour found that state anti-transgender laws were followed by increases in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary young people.
Sources: NPR; CNN via ABC 17; HealthDay; The Trevor Project (study summary).
The Justice Department subpoenas doctors for transgender patients’ names
July 9, 2025 · His administration’s policy
Nationwide. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics that provide gender-affirming care. At least one, sent to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, demanded that young patients prescribed puberty blockers or hormones be identified “by name, date of birth, social security number, address and parent/guardian information.”
Sources: AP via WDIV.
Anti-trans policies and funding rules imposed nationwide
January–July 2025 · His administration's policy
United States. Trump turned anti-trans policy into a governing program. On January 20 he ordered agencies to define sex strictly as biological and to roll back guidance protecting gender identity. A January 28 directive told agencies and funded partners to restrict gender-affirming care for youth. HHS moved to unwind Section 1557 health-care protections, and Education and HHS used funding leverage to force new rules on school sports. Fatal violence against trans and gender-expansive people ran at roughly 30 to 40 killings per year, with Black trans women hit hardest.
National context, not attributed to Trump: 27 transgender and gender non-conforming people killed, November 2024 to November 2025 (Human Rights Campaign)
National context, not attributed to Trump: 932 anti-LGBTQ incidents, including at least 85 assaults and 10 deaths, May 2024 to May 2025 (GLAAD ALERT Desk)
The Navy strips Harvey Milk’s name from a ship during Pride Month
June 27, 2025 · His administration’s policy
Washington, D.C. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the USNS Harvey Milk would be renamed for a Medal of Honor recipient, saying, “We are taking the politics out of ship naming.” Milk served almost four years in the Navy and left under threat of a court-martial over his sexuality.
Sources: ABC7 News.
The administration switches sides, and the Supreme Court upholds a ban on care for transgender teenagers
February 7 – June 18, 2025 · His administration’s position
Washington, D.C. Weeks after taking office, Trump’s Justice Department told the Supreme Court that the United States had changed its position in United States v. Skrmetti and now sided with Tennessee, which bans puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors. On June 18 the Court upheld the law, 6 to 3. Tennessee is one of 24 states with such bans.
Sources: Lambda Legal; ABC News via ABC7.
Transgender troops ordered out
May 8, 2025 · His administration’s policy
The Pentagon. With the Supreme Court letting the ban take effect, the Pentagon began separating about 1,000 openly transgender service members and gave others until June 6 (active duty) or July 7 (Guard and Reserve) to come forward. As of December 2024, 4,240 troops had a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Sources: AP via PBS NewsHour.
Transgender veterans denied care at the VA
March 17, 2025 · His administration’s policy
Nationwide. Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins ended the VA’s treatment of gender dysphoria for new patients, saying the VA “should not be focused on helping veterans attempt to change their sex.” Veterans already on hormone therapy could keep it. The VA counts about 9,100 transgender veterans among those it serves.
Sources: Virginia Mercury.
“$8 million for making mice transgender”
March 4, 2025 · In his own words
Washington, D.C. In his address to Congress, Trump claimed his administration had found “$8 million for making mice transgender. This is real.” The grants were studies of how hormone treatments affect mice, research meant to measure the effects on people. In the same speech he called gender-affirming care “the sexual mutilation of our youth” and called the idea that a child can be born in the wrong body “a big lie.”
Sources: PinkNews (with CNN fact-check).
Hundreds of LGBTQ health studies cut off
March – August 2025 · His administration’s policy
Nationwide. The National Institutes of Health began ending ongoing research grants, telling scientists that “research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific.” By May, at least 323 of the 669 grants NIH had canceled or cut since January were LGBTQ-related, worth more than $800 million, among them HIV research. A federal judge ruled the cuts unlawful; on August 21, 2025, the Supreme Court, 5 to 4, let NIH go ahead with terminating $783 million in grants while the case continues.
Sources: STAT; Lambda Legal; SCOTUSblog.
After Trump takes over the Kennedy Center, its Pride concert is canceled
February 2025 · His administration’s policy
Washington, D.C. A week after Trump made himself chairman of the Kennedy Center and complained about drag shows there, the center canceled a May 21 Pride concert by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington with the National Symphony Orchestra, later citing “financial and scheduling factors.”
Sources: Washingtonian.
Transgender people erased from the Stonewall monument’s history
February 13, 2025 · His administration’s policy
New York City. The National Park Service removed the words “transgender” and “queer” from the website of the Stonewall National Monument, which marks the 1969 uprising that helped launch the modern gay rights movement. “LGBTQ+” became “LGB.”
Sources: AP via WRDW.
“Men claiming to be girls”
February 5, 2025 · In his own words
The White House. Signing the order that barred transgender girls and women from women’s sports, Trump said “men claiming to be girls have stolen more than 3,500 victories” and described “a male boxer” at the Paris Olympics who “stole the woman’s gold medal after brutalizing his female opponent.” The boxer at the center of that controversy, Imane Khelif of Algeria, was assigned female at birth and is not transgender; the previous August, Trump had said she “transitioned.” “The war on women’s sports is over,” he said.
Sources: American Presidency Project (transcript); AP via News4JAX.
Federal health pages on HIV and young people taken offline
January 31 – February 11, 2025 · His administration’s policy
Nationwide. After the Office of Personnel Management ordered agencies to take down material promoting “gender ideology,” the CDC and FDA pulled webpages and datasets, including pages on adolescent health, HIV testing and contraception. A federal judge ordered them restored on February 11.
Sources: AP via WRDW.
Three orders in eight days erase transgender Americans from federal policy
January 20–28, 2025 · His administration's policy
Washington, D.C.. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an order declaring that the federal government recognizes only two sexes, fixed at birth, and directing agencies to strip gender identity from passports, prisons, programs and grants. A week later he ordered transgender troops out of the military; in May the Supreme Court let the ban take effect while the challenges continued. The next day he signed an order aimed at ending gender-affirming care for anyone under 19, and hospitals across the country began shutting down their programs for young people.
Sources: NPR; AP via WBTV.
“Kamala is for they/them”
September – October 2024 · In his own words
The campaign trail. Trump’s campaign closed the 2024 race with television ads built on the line “Kamala is for they/them,” and at a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on October 9 he promised to end “transgender insanity” in schools.
“An act of child abuse”
February 1, 2023 · In his own words
Campaign video. Announcing his plan for a second term, Trump said: “The left-wing gender insanity being pushed on our children is an act of child abuse, very simple.” He promised a law “prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states” and declared that “the only genders recognized by the U.S. government are male and female—and they are assigned at birth.”
Sources: Trump campaign (Agenda47).
Homeless shelters told they may turn transgender women away
July 1, 2020 · His administration’s policy
Nationwide. The Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed a rule letting federally funded homeless shelters house people by biological sex rather than gender identity, and judge a person’s sex by physical traits such as height, facial hair and an Adam’s apple. The rule was never finalized.
Sources: National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Health-care protections for transgender patients rolled back
June 12, 2020 · His administration’s policy
Nationwide. In the middle of the pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Services finalized a rule that removed nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people in health care and insurance, defining sex under the Affordable Care Act as biological sex. Three days later, in Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court ruled that firing someone for being gay or transgender is sex discrimination.
Sources: NPR.
The Justice Department tells the Supreme Court it is legal to fire workers for being gay
August 2019 · His administration’s position
Washington, D.C. Solicitor General Noel Francisco argued that federal civil rights law “does not bar discrimination because of sexual orientation,” a week after the department made the same argument against transgender workers. The Court ruled the other way, 6 to 3, in June 2020.
Sources: NBC News.
Embassies told not to fly the Pride flag
June 2019 · His administration’s policy
U.S. embassies. The administration denied requests from embassies including those in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia to fly the rainbow flag on their flagpoles during Pride Month, reversing the blanket approval of the previous administration.
Sources: KTVU.
Publicly funded foster agencies allowed to turn away gay couples
January 23, 2019 · His administration’s policy
South Carolina. The Department of Health and Human Services granted South Carolina a waiver letting Miracle Hill Ministries, which handled up to 15 percent of the state’s foster placements, stay in the state system while refusing same-sex and non-Christian couples as foster parents.
Sources: AP via FOX 29.
A plan to define sex by genitals at birth
October 21, 2018 · His administration’s policy
Washington, D.C. The New York Times reported an HHS memo proposing that sex be defined under Title IX as male or female, unchangeable and determined by the genitals a person is born with, with disputes settled by genetic testing. A similar definition became federal policy on Trump’s first day back in office in 2025.
Sources: NPR via MPR News.
Transgender prisoners to be housed by biological sex
May 11, 2018 · His administration’s policy
Federal prisons. The Bureau of Prisons rewrote its Transgender Offender Manual to use “biological sex” in deciding where transgender prisoners are housed, rolling back guidance meant to protect them under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
Sources: Windy City Times.
“He wants to hang them all”
October 16, 2017 · Reported remark
Reported by The New Yorker. Citing two sources, The New Yorker reported that when talk turned to gay rights, Trump gestured at Vice President Mike Pence and joked, “Don’t ask that guy — he wants to hang them all!” Pence’s spokeswoman called the account false.
Sources: NBC News.
Transgender workers stripped of federal civil rights protection
October 5, 2017 · His administration’s policy
Washington, D.C. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo declaring that federal civil rights law does not protect transgender people from discrimination at work, reversing the Justice Department’s position and committing it to argue so in “all pending and future matters.”
Sources: AP via MPR News.
Three tweets ban transgender Americans from the military
July 26, 2017 · His administration's policy
Twitter. Without telling the Pentagon in advance, Trump announced in a string of tweets that the government would no longer accept or allow transgender people to serve in any capacity. Thousands of transgender troops were already serving openly. The ban took effect in 2019 after court fights, was reversed in 2021, and returned with his second term.
Sources: Task & Purpose; American Oversight.
Protections for transgender students revoked
February 2017 · His administration's policy
United States. Trump revoked Obama-era protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms matching their gender identity. Researchers have since linked anti-trans policies to worse mental health among transgender young people. More on this above.
Sources: NPR.
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