Donald Trump’s victory in the US election last week sent shockwaves through the LGBTQ+ community, given the president-elect’s divisive rhetoric and demonization of the trans community in particular.

There are fears that a second Trump administration will have devastating effects for millions of LGBTQ+ people in the United States and beyond.

What might Trump do while in office? The Policy Manifesto Project 2025 gives some clues.

A blueprint for discrimination

Written by Heritage Foundationa conservative think tank, Project 2025 is a playbook for the next conservative president.

Contains contributions from over 110 groups on key policy and staff recommendations. The intention is to act quickly. It has a duration of 180 days action plan which “includes a comprehensive and concrete transition plan for each federal agency.”

Trump tried to distance himself from the manifesto during the campaign. However, many of the contributors played roles in Trump’s first term. This includes Stephen Miller, who is expected to be named deputy chief of staff for politics in his second term. Miller’s group, America First Legal, supported Project 2025.

In 2022, Trump too said from the Heritage Foundation plans:

This is a great group and they will lay the groundwork and the detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.

The Project 2025 manifesto calls for the elimination of anti-discrimination policies that protect the LGBTQ+ community. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), this means Clearing all federal regulations and rules prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

More precisely, Project 2025 aims to limits the application of a Supreme Court ruling protecting people from workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status.

The plan also calls for reversing policies that allow transgender people to serve in the military. And it advocates blocking gender-affirming medical care for transgender people in federal health care programs like Medicare.

Its authors also aim to overturn the Biden administration’s executive order promoting gender equity and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The preface of the manifesto says that in America today,

children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.

Of particular concern is the suggestion that transgender identity and drag queens are synonymous with a vague definition of “pornography”. In addition, the document recommends that educators and public librarians who “provide pornography” be classified as registered sex offenders.

The plan does not specifically target marriage equality. However, there are mentions of the “biblical” definition of marriage and family. Some credit it treats same-sex unions as “second-class marriages”.

Trump’s record on LGBTQ+ issues

Looking beyond Project 2025, there are other troubling signs Trump will not be a president who acts on behalf of LGBTQ+ Americans.

His appointment of anti-LGBTQ+ judges during his first presidency has already created one judicial climate hostile to LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV.

While president, Trump and he opposite a proposed The law of equality. It would have provided consistent and explicit anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people in key areas of life, including employment, housing and education. The act was returned by Democrats last year and failed to pass the Senate.

During his time first term in officeTrump also:

• supported employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ people
• banned transgender people from serving in the military and
• repealed Obama-era anti-discrimination protections.

Plus his anti-LGBTQ+ slurs food antagonism and division leading to increase in hate speech.

In 2017, for example, Trump he joked his vice president, Mike Pence, wanted to “hang” homosexuals. (The White House denied the remark.)

The attack on LGBTQ+ rights at the state level

The ideology driving some of the anti-LGBTQ+ proposals in Project 2025 already is very visible at the state level in the US.

Only in 2024, the ACLU has PURSUED 532 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the US. These include:

• 208 laws that restrict the rights of students and educators
• 70 religious exemption bills
• 112 on health restrictions and
• 34 prohibitions on freedom of speech and expression (including 27 prohibitions on speech).

Protests against childhood literacy events during drag queen stories led to increased surveillance of public libraries, as well as false statements such events are funded by taxpayers.

After pressure from conservative activists, corporations they have also backed away from commitments to LGBTQ+ inclusion. For some, this includes not participating in The Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.

Constitutional challenges

Additionally, the ACLU warns the Trump administration could weaponize federal law against transgender people. For example, the group says, it could override critical state-level protections by arguing that state laws protecting transgender students infringe on the federal statutory rights of non-transgender students.

The ACLU also expressed concern that the Trump administration could take the “extreme position” that the US Constitution gives employers the right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people based on the employer’s religious beliefs, despite state non-discrimination laws.

Many of the anti-LGBTQ+ policies outlined in Project 2025 likely would infringe The Constitution and Federal Law. Organizations like the ACLU could then use the courts to challenge any Trump executive orders or other policy changes.

And Congress can still use its oversight and investigative roles to narrow the Trump administration’s agenda. However, Republicans now hold a majority in the Senate and may have a majority in the House of Representatives.

This means activists hoping to challenge anti-LGBTQ+ policies will need a well-coordinated solution equality action coalition at the federal, state and local levels to push for change and block any discriminatory policies that might emerge during Trump’s second term.