Project 2025 vowed to roll back LGBTQ+ rights. Here's everything Trump has done so far
05/06/25
Project 2025 is underway
World Health Organization builing (L); Young children eating USAID rations (C); Plane taking off behind barbed wire (R)Skorzewiak / Shutterstock.com; Mohammed Zonaid8 / Shutterstock.com; Shuttershock CreativeDonald Trump claimed on the campaign trail that he had "nothing to do" with Project 2025 — but now that he's in office, he's implementing it.
The 900-page document created by the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation provided Trump with a blueprint for his second term, though he would deny his connection to it up until his election. Trump said in the ABC News Presidential Debate in September: “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
Project 2025 directed the next conservative administration after President Joe Biden to fire as many as 50,000 career federal employees and replace them with people who have unquestionable loyalty to the president; restrict access to contraception; possibly implement a national abortion ban; cut federal health care programs; and much more — and it's already accomplished a lot of what it set out to do.
While it's probably true that Trump didn't read it — more likely can't read it — he's still enacting its policies at an alarming rate. The Trump Administration has completed 97 objectives, and is in the process of completing 62 more, out of 312 total proposals listed in Project 2025, according to the Project 2025 tracker.
Here's everything from Project 2025 that Trump has done so far to target LGBTQ+ rights.
Incorrectly declared there are two fixed sexes
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What Project 2025 (page 334) says: "On its first day in office, the next Administration should signal its intent to enter the rulemaking process to restore the Trump Administration’s Title IX regulation, with the additional insistence that 'sex' is properly understood as a fixed biological fact. Official notice-and-comment should be posted immediately."
What Trump did: Trump signed the so-called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" executive order in January, which incorrectly defines sex as strictly male or female based on the “immutable biological reality of sex” characteristics at birth.
The order explicitly denied the existence of transgender and nonbinary people, stating, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
The medical and scientific communities overwhelmingly agree that sex is a spectrum. There are currently over 40 known intersex variations, according to the Intersex Society of North America, which can cause individuals to make more or less estrogen or testosterone than average, be more or less sensitive to those hormones, have different sizes and appearances of their genitals, and have variations in their X and Y sex chromosomes.
Ended data collection on gender identity
Magnifying glass on CDC website
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What Project 2025 (page 456) says: "The CDC should immediately end its collection of data on gender identity, which legitimizes the unscientific notion that men can become women (and vice versa) and encourages the phenomenon of ever-multiplying subjective identities."
What Trump did: After Trump signed the executive order incorrectly recognizing only two sexes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would comply by no longer processing data on transgender identity. In the process of scrubbing "gender identity" from its websites, the CDC also removed content related to HIV.
The Trump Administration was ordered to restore the websites by a federal judge, which it did — but with an added highly misleading disclaimer that conflated gender-affirming care with "chemical and surgical mutilation."
The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the World Medical Association, and the World Health Organization all agree that gender-affirming care is evidence-based and medically necessary not just for adults, but minors as well.
Removed sexual orientation and gender identity from Title IX
Group of diverse LGBTQ+ students in courtyard
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What Project 2025 (page 334) says: "The next Administration should abandon this change redefining 'sex' to mean 'sexual orientation and gender identity' in Title IX immediately across all departments."
What Trump did: President Joe Biden's interpretations of Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, included sexual orientation and gender identity. After it was struck down by a judge, the Trump Administration reverted to its 2020 rules, which exclude LGBTQ+ identities.
Trump shortly after signed the so-called “No Men in Women’s Sports" executive order banning trans students from participating in sports based on their gender identity. White House officials framed the move as a rejection of the Biden administration’s reinterpretation of Title IX.
Rescinded school sexual assault protections
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What Project 2025 (page 333) says: "The Trump Administration’s 2020 Title IX regulation protected the foundational right to due process for those who are accused of sexual misconduct. The Biden Administration’s proposed change to the interpretation of Title IX disposes of these rights. The next Administration should move quickly to restore the rights of women and girls and restore due process protections for accused individuals."
What Trump did: Trump's Title IX interpretations also created more protections for accused students of sexual misconduct by outlining how investigations must be conducted, including requirements for live hearings.
“Today’s decision displays extraordinary disregard for students who are most vulnerable to discrimination and are in the most need for federal protections under the Title IX rule," Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, said in a January statement. "The Biden administration’s Title IX rule is essential to ensure that all students — including survivors of sexual assault and harassment, pregnant and parenting students, and LGBTQI+ students — are able to learn in a safe and welcoming environment."
"With these protections already removed in some states, students who experience sexual assault have had their complaints dismissed, or worse, been punished by their schools after reporting; pregnant students have been unfairly penalized for taking time off to give birth to a child; and LGBTQI+ students have faced vicious bullying and harassment just for being who they are," she continued.
Dismantled diversity, equity, and inclusion offices
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What Project 2025 (page 258) says: "As federal departments and agencies cannot play partisan politics, staff — irrespective of hiring mechanism — as well as implementers and grantees that engage in ideological agitation on behalf of the DEI agenda should be dismissed, and entities should be debarred."
What Trump did: Trump issued sweeping directives to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the federal government in a memo distributed by Acting Office of Personnel Management Director Charles Ezell. Agency heads were ordered to shutter DEI offices, terminate related contracts, and place employees working on DEI initiatives on administrative leave.
The memo followed executive orders signed by Trump titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” and “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.”
Removed "woke" words from federal government
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What Project 2025 (pages 4 and 5) says: "The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity ('SOGI'), diversity, equity, and inclusion ('DEI'), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensi- tive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists."
What Trump did: Trump's executive orders forcing the removal of all references to DEI in the federal government, as well as mandating that the federal government deny the existence of transgender people, resulted in the federal government releasing a list of banned words shortly after.
The banned words include advocate, assigned at birth, assigned female at birth, assigned male at birth, biologically female, biologically male, Black, breastfeed + people, breastfeed + person, chestfeed + people, chestfeed + person, female, females, feminism, gender, gender based, gender based violence, gender diversity, gender identity, gender ideology, gender-affirming care, genders, immigrant, LGBT, LGBTQ, men who have sex with men, MSM, Mx, non-binary, nonbinary, people + uterus, pronoun, pronouns, segregation, sex, sexual preferences, sexuality, they/them, trans, transgender, transsexual, and women.
Permitted healthcare discrimination based on gender identity
Doctor with LGBTQ+ Pride pin
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What Project 2025 (page 475) says: "The redefinition of sex to cover gender identity and sexual orientation and pregnancy to cover abortion should be reversed in all HHS and CMS programs as was done under the Trump Administration."
What Trump did: Trump revised the Department of Health and Human Service's Section 1557 to exclude sexual orientation and gender identity from discrimination protections. He did so by rescinding Biden’s January 2021 executive order titled “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.”
The order, like Trump's Title IX interpretations, go against a 2020 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, Bostock v. Clayton County, that determined federal laws protecting against sex discrimination in employment, including Title VII, encompass gender identity.
Abolished the Gender Policy Council
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What Project 2025 (page 62) says: "The President should immediately revoke Executive Order 14020 and every policy, including subregulatory guidance documents, produced on behalf of or related to the establishment or promotion of the Gender Policy Council and its subsidiary issues."
What Trump did: Biden formed the White House Gender Policy Council in 2021 through Executive Order 14020, which had the stated mission to “protect, improve and expand access to health care, including sexual and reproductive health.” This included by addressing gender-based discrimination, violence, health inequities, and human rights.
Trump dismantled the council through the so called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" and “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions" executive orders.
Rescinded Equal Opportunity Employment
Black woman working with hard hat and vest
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What Project 2025 (page 584) says: "Rescind EO 11246. The President should eliminate OFCCP by simply rescinding EO 11246. Federal contractors would still be bound by statutory nondiscrimination law but would no longer work under overlapping regimes."
What Trump did: Trump dismantled rescinded civil rights protections from Lyndon B. Johnson's Executive Order 11246 that prevented the federal government from discriminating "against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." The Trump Administration claimed to create “colorblind equality" while overturning the very policy mandating it.
The new order eliminates requirements for federal contractors to implement affirmative action policies or to ensure that their workforces reflect the diversity of the nation.It also prohibits federal hiring practices from considering diversity, equity, and inclusion factors, focusing instead on what the administrationcalls “merit-based” systems.
Defunded USAID over "sexual reproductive health"
Rohingya children eat meals provided by USAID funding
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What Project 2025 (page 254) says: "The next conservative Administration should scale back USAID’s global foot- print by, at a minimum, returning to the agency’s 2019 pre–COVID-19 pandemic budget level. It should deradicalize USAID’s programs and structures and build on the conservative reforms instituted by the Trump Administration."
What Trump did: Trump’s administration, aided by Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, dismantled USAID, which handled foreign aid programs, including those that fight HIV and other diseases, to prevent funding for "sexual reproductive health and reproductive rights" and "gender equality."
The closing of USAID also stopped payments to health care providers working with the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) which was started by Republican President George W. Bush and was praised by Trump in his first term. The administration had said earlier that PEPFAR, which provides HIV drugs and related services to poor countries around the world, would be exempt from any funding freeze.
Prioritized funding for faith-based organizations
Holding hands around Bibles and a globe
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What Project 2025 (page 265) says: "Increasing USAID Collaboration with Faith-Based Organizations. FBOs historically have been much more successful in outreach to remote and vulnerable populations, based on trust built through decades of service."
What Trump did: Christian organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, and Mercy Corps were exempt from Trump's federal funding freeze that dismantled USAID. Abolishing the organization seemingly goes further than what was outlined in Project 2025, which called for "Increasing USAID Collaboration with Faith-Based Organizations."
A federal judge ordered in February that the Trump Administration restore USAID’s funding, but the administration has appealed to the Supreme Court, which paused the judge’s order pending further review. Aid groups filed a brief with the high court saying there would be “extraordinary and irreversible harm” if the funding is not restored quickly.
Banned Pride and BLM flags at government buildings
Rainbow LGBTQ+ Pride flag and Black Lives Matter flag outside church
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What Project 2025 (page 89) says: "Divisive symbols such as the rainbow flag or the Black Lives Matter flag have no place next to the Stars and Stripes at our embassies."
What Trump did: The State Department ordered in January that only U.S. flags be flown at embassies and consulates around the world, explicitly prohibiting rainbow LGBTQ+ flags and Black Lives Matter flags. The only exceptions to the rule are prisoner-of-war and missing-in-action flags.
The Biden Administration flew the flags regularly, until 2024, when the former president agreed to ban LGBTQ+ Pride flags from flying at U.S. embassies in order to pass a spending bill to keep the government open. The measure was stuck into the government spending agreement by Republicans during negotiations and enthusiastically promoted by anti-LGBTQ+ House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Rescheduled and fired federal workers
Fired worker carrying box out of office
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What Project 2025 (pages 80 and 81) says: "The Trump Administration issued Executive Order 1395724 to make career professionals in positions that are not normally subject to change as a result of a presidential transition but who discharge significant duties and exercise significant discretion in formulating and implementing executive branch policy and programs an exception to the competitive hiring rules and examinations for career positions under a new Schedule F. ... The order was subsequently reversed by President Biden at the demand of the civil service associations and unions. It should be reinstated, but SES responsibility should come first."
What Trump did: Trump reclassified thousands of federal civil service workers under Schedule F, making it easier to fire them and replace them with MAGA loyalists. At least 121,000 federal workers have been fired or laid off in the three months since President Donald Trump’s second term began, according to a report from CNN.
Thousands of workers, many still in their probationary period, have been terminated under vague claims of poor performance despite often never having their work flagged as inadequate. Nathan Barrera-Bunch, a former management analyst at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, previously told The Advocatehe was fired 86 days into his job for performance reasons despite never being given a performance review. He was unable to receive unemployment because of this, and was unable to refill a prescription for HIV prevention or anti-anxiety medication.
“I don’t feel bad for people who knew exactly who Trump was and still voted for him,” he said. “Some people are only going to learn through suffering; unfortunately, we’re all suffering because of them. If you didn’t want to pay attention to what he did before, well, now you get to experience it firsthand.”
Withdrew from WHO and UN Human Rights Council
World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland
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What Project 2025 (page 191) says: "When such institutions act against U.S. interests, the United States must be prepared to take appropriate steps in response, up to and including withdrawal. The manifest failure and corruption of the World Health Organization (WHO) during the COVID-19 pandemic is an example of the danger that international organizations pose to U.S. citizens and interests."
What Trump did: Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO) on his first day back in office, which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies, as well as the United Nations Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental body responsible for promoting and protecting human rights globally.
Trump also removed the U.S. from the UN's LGBT! Core Group, which supports the rights of LGBTQ+ and intersex people around the world.
Facilitated deportations without due process
Plane flying behind barbed wire
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What Project 2025 (page 142) says: "ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) should be identified as being primarily responsible for enforcing civil immigration regulations, including the civil arrest, detention, and removal of immigration violators anywhere in the United States, without warrant where appropriate, subject only to the civil warrant requirements of the INA where appropriate."
What Trump did: Trump has taken several actions to facilitate deportations without due process as outlined in Project 2025, including increasing the use of civil search warrants for workplace raids, authorizing state and local law enforcement to participate in immigration actions, raising the standard for a credible fear of persecution for asylum, suspending all visas to people from countries that do not accept the return of immigrants ordered deported, and creating a "single nationwide detention standard" that includes the "flexibility to use large numbers of temporary facilities such as tents."
Countless people have been deported without due process under Trump regardless of their legal status, including Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia who is married to a U.S. citizen, three children — including one with cancer — who are U.S. citizens, and a gay asylum seeker fleeing anti-LGBTQ+ violence in Venezuela, Andry Hernández Romero.
Hernández Romero is now believed to be held inside El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, better known as CECOT — a sprawling, brutalist mega-prison that has been compared to a modern gulag or concentration camp. His lawyer, Lindsay Toczylowski, previously told The Advocate that “This is one of the most shocking things I could ever imagine happening to a client."
Banned trans people from the military
Trans flag patch on camo army uniform
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What Project 2025 (page 103) says: "Entrance criteria for military service and specific occupational career fields should be based on the needs of those positions. Exceptions for individuals who are already predisposed to require medical treatment (for example, HIV positive or suffering from gender dysphoria) should be removed, and those with gender dysphoria should be expelled from military service."
What Trump did: Trump signed an executive order in February to “eliminate gender radicalism in the military,” opening the door to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. Washington state U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle issued an injunction in March barring the military from enforcing the order, which was upheld by the the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in April.
The Trump Administration then asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the ban, which has not yet agreed to hear the case, but previously ruled 5-4 in his favor in 2019.
Second Lieutenant Nicolas Talbott, the trans man whose name is attached to Talbott v. Trump, previously told The Advocate: “I’ve come too far to quit now. I worked for this. I fought for this. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Banned gender-affirming care for trans troops
Military officer in doctors appointment
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What Project 2025 (page 104) says: "Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military. Gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service, and the use of public monies for transgender surgeries or to facilitate abortion for servicemembers should be ended."
What Trump did: The Department of Veterans Affairs announced in March that it would phase out gender-affirming care medical treatmentsfor trans veterans, citing Trump’s executive order denying the existence of trans people. The decision halted access to hormone replacement therapy for veterans unless they were already receiving it through the VA or the military at the time of their discharge. All other medical care for gender dysphoria, including speech therapy and prosthetics such as chest binders and wigs, was discontinued.
The Department of Defense resumed providing the care after a court order that found the restrictions on trans service members unconstitutional. Federal judges have blocked the ban in two separate lawsuits, and one appeals court has denied the department’s request to lift the block while legal challenges proceed.
Removed "gender ideology" in schools
LGBTQ+ students studying
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What Project 2025 (page 5) says: "The noxious tenets of 'critical race theory' and 'gender ideology' should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country. These theories poison our children, who are being taught on the one hand to affirm that the color of their skin fundamentally determines their identity and even their moral status while on the other they are taught to deny the very creatureliness that inheres in being human and consists in accepting the givenness of our nature as men or women."
What Trump did: Trump signed an executive order in January banning schools that receive federal funding from allowing students to go by their chosen name and pronouns. It also barred trans kids from using bathrooms and locker rooms or playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
The order specifically bans supporting the social transitions of trans students in public schools. Social transitioning may include things like coming out as trans or nonbinary, going by a different name, dressing in a way that aligns better with a person's gender identity, or using pronouns that better reflect a person's identity.
Prioritized heterosexual marriage
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What Project 2025 (page 451) says: "Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on 'LGBTQ+ equity,' subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families."
What Trump did: A Department of Transportation memo from February ordered agency staff to "give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average." Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that the directive encompasses all existing grants, loans, and contracts through the DOT, directing employees to prioritize projects for areas home to more “families with young children.”
"To the maximum extent permitted by law, DOT-supported or -assisted programs and activities, including without limitation, all DOT grants, loans, contracts, and DOT-supported or -assisted State contracts, shall prioritize projects and goals that: ... mitigate the unique impacts of DOT programs, policies, and activities on families and family- specific difficulties, such as the accessibility of transportation to families with young children, and give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average (including in administering the Federal Transit Administration's capital Investment Grant program)," the memo read.
Revoked foster care anti-discrimination policies
Young girl holding up paper cutout of a family
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What Project 2025 (page 477 and 478) says: "Many of the faith-based adoption agencies that serve these children are under threat from lawsuits, or else their licenses and contracts have been halted because they cannot in good conscience place children in every household due to their religious belief that a child should have a married mother and father. HHS, through ACF and the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources (ASFR), should repeal the unnecessary 2016 regulation that imposes non-statutory sexual orientation and gender identity nondiscrimination conditions on agency grants and return to the policy of maximizing the options for placing vulnerable children in their forever homes."
What Trump did: Trump established the White House Faith Office in part to promote "foster care and adoption programs in partnership with faith-based entities" and "work in collaboration with the Attorney General, or a designee of the Attorney General, to identify concerns raised by faith-based entities, community organizations, and houses of worship about any failures of the executive branch to enforce constitutional and Federal statutory protections for religious liberty."
Ban federal funds from going to abortions
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What Project 2025 (page 471) says: "The Hyde Amendment has long prohibited the use of HHS funds for elective abortions, but an August 2022 Biden executive order pressed the HHS Secretary to use his authority under Section 1115 demonstrations to waive certain provisions of the law in order to use taxpayer funds to achieve the Administration’s goal of helping women to travel out of state to obtain abortions. ... Two of the first actions of a pro-life Administration should be for HHS to withdraw the Medicaid guidance (and any Section 1115 waivers issued thereunder) and for DOJ OLC to withdraw and disavow its interpretation of the Hyde Amendment."
What Trump did: One of the first things Trump did back in office was reverse Biden's executive orders preventing the enforcement of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions, including Medicaid and other federal health services. He claimed, as Project 2025's authors did, that "American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for" so-called "elective abortions."
Prohibited funding for abortion travel
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What Project 2025 (page 471) says: "Prohibit abortion travel funding. Providing funding for abortions increases the number of abortions and violates the conscience and religious freedom rights of Americans who object to subsidizing the taking of life."
What Trump did: The Pentagon’s Defense Travel Management Office issued a memo in January rescinding a Biden administration policy that reimbursed service members and dependents for travel to states where abortion is legal. The memo referenced Trump's executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment.
Activists have long called on Congress to repeal the Hyde Amendment through the EACH Act. Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement that “ending the Hyde Amendment is long overdue."
"For too long, this harmful, unpopular, and discriminatory policy has restricted the reproductive freedom of too many — particularly Black, Latino, and LGBTQ+ people," Johnson said. "Everyone deserves access to the full range of reproductive health services, including abortion, no matter your income or zip code. We cannot let another year go by with this harmful policy in place. We continue to urge Congress to permanently and immediately end the Hyde Amendment, pass the EACH Act, and fight for full reproductive freedom for all.”
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