Trump's War on Gay, Lesbian, and Trans People

[justaprogressive]

When Donald Trump ran for president last year, he signaled that he would not be far-right on social issues. He tried to defuse the issue of abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade by saying that it was now up to the states, as if this preserved rights. He refused to say whether he personally opposed abortion.

And on LGBTQ rights, the Republican platform, at Trump’s request, did not propose ending marriage equality. All of this was a classic Trump feint.

Trump’s administration has worked with state officials on vigilante laws intended to punish people who seek reproductive care out of state. He has redoubled the attempt to deny federal funds to Planned Parenthood. Trump’s appointees keep trying to ban medications that induce abortion, the safest and most widespread method.

And the attack on gay and trans people keeps escalating. On Inauguration Day, Trump declared that “only two genders,” male and female, would be recognized going forward by the federal government. He signed an executive order to that effect within hours of being sworn in.

Trump has used supposed DEI excesses to attack gay and lesbian people per se, much as he has used the DEI ruse to purge Black people from senior posts. He has banned trans people from serving in the armed forces. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth changed the name of the US Navy ship named for Harvey Milk, the gay San Francisco mayor who was gunned down in his office in 1978. Milk was a navy veteran.

https://prospect.org/civil-rights/2025-07-01-trump-lgbt-rights-scott-bessent/