The news has long since broken and the hearts of many democrats, leftists and LGBTQ+ supporters have broken with it: Donald Trump is president.
Not only did Trump win the electoral college votes in a significant victory, he won the popular vote by a hearty three million votes. Not to mention the fact that the Republican party now controls both the House and the Senate. Trump supporters around the nation are rejoicing that the country has finally come to its senses.
Needless to say, many queer people find this disheartening.
As one of the “they/thems” Kamala Harris was purportedly for, I, too, am feeling rather disappointed — though not all that surprised.
But before all us blue-haired, pronoun-loving liberals faint in fear, let’s take a clear, pragmatic look at what Trump’s presidency may look like for LGBTQ+ rights and what we can do about it.
And apologies for the ironic self-deprecating jokes, it’s how I’m coping.
Title IX
Although much of his campaign has focused on improving the economy and cracking down on immigration, Trump has made several declarations on how he plans to address the whole “gender insanity” issue.
He’s vowed to do three things: get men out of women’s sports, stop the “mutilation” of our youth, and punish schools who promote transgender ideology.
During Trump’s administration, it’s likely that Biden’s efforts to expand Title IX to offer protections for LGBTQ+ students will be swiftly overridden. This would mean that, on the federal level, LGBT students will have no explicit protections from discrimination on the basis of their identity.
Title IX is a law, part of the 1972 amendments to the 1965 Higher Education Act, that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any school receiving federal funding. During Biden’s administration, this protection has been interpreted to include discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.
Biden’s change of the Title IX rule was not through an executive order or a law passed through Congress, but a clarification made by the Department of Education. Trump will likely change the rule in the same way, which is subject to no explicit checks from other branches.
During his first term, he had his own definition of Title IX.
Any changes to Title IX, however, can (and likely will) be challenged by courts just as Biden’s changes have. It’s important to note, too, that a 2020 Supreme Court Case, Bostock v. Clayton County, has set the precedent of a similar civil rights act (protecting against employment discrimination on the basis of sex) extending to gender identity and sexual orientation.
If the issue of Title IX ends up reaching higher courts, it’s not implausible that the court will rule in favor of LGBT students based on this precedent. That is a lot of “if’s,” however.
Cutting Federal Funding
Trump, however, may also use the threat of pulling federal funding to control the decisions of schools. In his official 2024 Party Platform (not Project 2025 by the Heritage Foundation, but the campaign promises on his own website), Trump stated that he would “cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”
According to Trump, this would be accomplished through executive orders. On the surface, executive orders appear to give presidents unchecked power to make whatever laws they please. However, they are subject to judicial review and may be struck down if the supreme court rules either that its content is unconstitutional or that the president lacked the authority to issue it.
Assuming, then, that an executive order would be shot down, Trump has one other path to cutting federal funding: civil rights inquiries. Schools that don’t follow civil rights laws are subject to losing federal funding. If Trump can construe the law in such a way that schools teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation (or critical race theory) can be considered discriminatory, he can also deny them federal funding.
Still, it’s difficult to say how successful such an effort would be or if it would even be attempted — this is simply a possibility brought up by this AP News article.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that most K-12 public schools generally rely much more on local and state funding than federal funding. Of course, that just means the poorest schools in the country would be hit the hardest for going against Trump’s visions of the education system, as well as colleges that rely on federal funding for grants and loans.
Restrictions on Gender Affirming Care
Trump has pledged that he will “ban Taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries” and that he “will sign an executive order instructing every federal agency to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age.”
Practically speaking, these may be empty threats.
In terms of tax-funded gender affirming surgeries, Trump is likely only referring to Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Healthcare Administration (VHA). Medicare and Medicaid can cover hormone replacement therapy and gender affirming surgeries; the VHA can cover gender affirming care but not gender affirming surgeries.
And, yes, in case you were wondering, Medicare and Medicaid are different programs — Medicare is for the elderly or disabled, while Medicaid is for low income adults and children. Medicaid is primarily state-run, which makes standardizing access to care difficult to begin with — Medicaid already doesn’t cover gender affirming care in several states.
But before Trump even attempts to prevent these healthcare programs from providing gender affirming care, he’ll first have to contend with the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination in access to healthcare on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability.
Although, again, we’re back at the question of whether protection against sex based discrimination extends to sexual orientation and gender identity.
As for banning gender affirming care, a case — L.W. v. Skrmetti/U.S. v. Skrmetti — is set to be heard by the Supreme Court next month that will decide whether Tennessee’s ban on gender affirming care is unconstitutional.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Williams and their 15 year old transgender daughter, Trump’s plans to “cease the promotion of sex or gender transition” could come to a complete stop.
If not, it’s not the end of the world for gender affirming care. A suboptimal ruling doesn’t mean gender affirming care will immediately be banned (for minors or adults), it just means there won’t be any explicit protections against future bans — that’s an important distinction.
And besides, as we’ve learned recently, Supreme Court rulings can be overturned.
Take-aways and Personal Notes
I’ll admit, this blog post was difficult to write. It’s taken me longer than it really should have to finish and post it, mostly because researching all this stuff is making me feel physically ill with stress.
And I’m looking at all these articles as someone who has a supportive family, lives in a relatively liberal area, doesn’t even visibly read as transgender and is about to turn 18 in a couple months — that’s about as lucky as it gets for a trans kid, honestly.
So, to any other trans person who’s even slightly unluckier than me, I’m sorry. And I’m even more sorry that an apology is all I can give you.
We don’t know exactly what Trump will do when he is inaugurated in January — there is a possibility that he won’t follow through on all these promises, or that he will face such staunch opposition that certain initiatives will be abandoned. Many civil rights rights groups are already moving to fight these anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives, and they may be successful.
The main saving grace here is that Trump may not care enough about LGBTQ+ issues to pursue all these policies. He’s shown his priorities lie more in curbing immigration, improving the economy and cutting down on government spending.
If you have any hope left, hold onto it while you can. Gaining acceptance, liberation, rights — it feels like a Sisyphean task, but the world is never as hateful as it may seem.
Even as polls come out showing the negative views many Americans have of trans people, think: of all the people who believe being transgender is some sort of mental illness or something that’s “morally wrong,” how many of them are simply expressing their gut reactions to new ideas? How many are basing their opinions on the fear-mongering they’ve heard about trans people?
These initiatives, if passed, require obedience on every level for them to actually have tangible effects — that’s the nature of federal ordinances. Compassion from any single person on that ladder can make all the difference.
And let’s not forget that, though we may have faced a potential loss for LGBT rights in the presidency, we’ve had some notable wins in Congress. This year has seen our first openly transgender congresswoman, Sarah McBride, elected to the House of Representatives. We have 13 LGBTQ+ representatives in the 119th Congress that will fight for our rights however they can.
You have the right to lobby politicians and protest decisions made by our government. If you live in Loudoun County, your representative is Suhas Subramanyam, and if you live in Virginia, your senators are Timothy Kaine and Mark Warner.
If you’re old enough to vote in 2025, Virginia is having its gubernatorial election next year and Glenn Youngkin — who has passed several anti-trans policies during his administration — cannot run.
It will be easier for Trump to roll back protections than enact bans. That leaves trans rights largely in the hands of our local and state governments, so make sure you’re reaching out to your state representatives and being an active participant in local elections. For those in Virginia, find your representatives here.
Good luck out there. Stay safe and stay queer.
