Politics

Here are all the times the Trump administration has attacked LGBTQ rights since he became President

Donald Trump in front of a burning rainbow flag that's on fire
Photo: Graham Gremore

Keeping a running track of the Trump administration’s attacks on the LGBTQ community is about like counting the number of lies he tells. It’s a thankless job, but someone has to do it.

Thankfully, our friends at GLAAD run the Trump Accountability Project, and they have kept a tally of the nonstop barrage on the community’s civil rights. From erasing our issues from federal websites minutes after being inaugurated to allowing healthcare providers to discriminate against LGBTQ people, it’s all on the list.

Related: LGBTQ people have a lot at stake in Donald Trump’s impeachment

And, of course, we’ve been here reporting it all for you. And we’ll continue to monitor the situation with our partners at GLAAD until Trump finally leaves office – and update this list as necessary.

A Complete List of the Trump Administration’s Attacks on LGBTQ Americans

2020

  • June 8, 2020 – The Council for Global Equality calls out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for refusing to acknowledge LGBTQ Pride Month or the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia. Secretary Pompeo has promoted international policies used to deny LGBTI citizens equal rights in employment, health and education.
  • June 5, 2020 – New Trump appointee to U.S. foreign aid agency USAID has a history of online attacks against the “homo-empire” pushing “tyrannical LGBT agenda.” Merritt Corrigan formerly worked for the Republican National Committee and the Hungarian embassy in Washington. She has praised authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. USAID says it has a “zero-tolerance policy of any form or harassment based on gender, race, sexual orientation, [and] religion” and is working for a world in which LGBT people are “respected and able to live with dignity, free from discrimination, persecution and violence.”
  • June 4, 2020 – Support among evangelicals drops 15 points and falls 27 points among white Catholics. Pres. Trump’s handling of the George Floyd protests prompts rare rebuke from televangelist Pat Robertson. Failing to win evangelical support would imperil Trump’s re-election if he is unable to reverse it.
  • June 3, 2020 – U.S. Solicitor General and seventy-six members of Congress (signed names here) file briefs at the Supreme Court to support discrimination against LGBTQ couples looking to become foster families.
  • June 2, 2020 – A day after clearing protestors with tear gas, flashbomb grenades and police in riot gear, Pres. Trump signs executive order supporting “international religious freedom.” Stages another photo op in front of religious site. The Archbishop of Washington calls the visit “baffling and reprehensible.”
  • June 1, 2020 – Thousands of protestors demanding justice for George Floyd and against racism and police brutality cleared by a coordinated militarized crackdown in a park in front of White House. Pres. Trump uses law enforcement officers from multiple agencies to secure his walk to St. John’s Church to hold up a Bible, surrounded by five white advisers, for a campaign photo op. Religious leaders describe the actions as hypocritical and obscene.
  • May 19, 2020 – The Trump administration is using departments of State, Justice, Health and Human Services, Labor and Housing and Urban Development to push religious exemptions at the expense of LGBTQ rights, detailed by the ACLU, Center for American Progress and the Movement Advancement Project.
  • May 15, 2020 – President Trump’s new press secretary Kayleigh McEnamy gives false answers about the administration’s hurtful policies against LGBTQ Americans.
  • May 15, 2020 – Newly-surfaced video and audio shows Trump campaign adviser and senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis grotesquely and falsely claims same-sex marriage will lead to legally and socially-accepted bestiality and pedophilia.
  • May 15, 2020 – U.S. Navy grants waiver to transgender naval officer, allowing her to remain in uniform. It’s the first waiver granted since the administration began enforcing its surprise ban against transgender service members. The government is expected to file its response to the suit filed by the naval officer in federal court.
  • May 5, 2020 – HHS ruling targets LGBTQ youth during a public health crisis. The Trump administration ends LGBTQ data collection on foster children and adoptive parents, silencing issues LGBTQ-identifying children may face in finding permanent homes. Christina Wilson Remlin, lead counsel for Children’s Rights, calls it “a huge mistake that will harm the children we serve.”
  • April 24, 2020 – The Trump administration moved to end a policy that protected LGBTQ patients from discrimination, potentially enabling hospitals and health workers to more easily discriminate against patients based on their gender or sexual orientation. This move alarmed health experts who warned that the regulatory rollback could harm vulnerable people during a pandemic.
  • April 8, 2020 – President Trump appointed Kayleigh McEnany, who has a history of using the press to attack LGBTQ people, as Press Secretary.
  • April 3, 2020 – The Trump Administration’s Department of Justice filed a “statement of interest” in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, which stated that it has a “significant interest” in ensuring that Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is interpreted as excluding transgender female athletes and applying only to cisgender females.
  • March 25, 2020 – Preacher Ralph Drollinger, who leads a weekly Bible study for Cabinet Secretaries in the Trump Administration, wrote that he believes the coronavirus pandemic is a “consequential” or “sowing and reaping” form of wrath that directly stems from tolerance of “a proclivity toward lesbianism and homosexuality.”
  • January 21, 2020 – Vice President Mike Pence attended a church service whose pastor used false, derogatory statements to describe the LGBTQ community.  The event was live-streamed on the White House website.
  • January 16, 2020 – A directive by the Trump Administration across multiple government agencies was issued to strengthen access to federal dollars for religious-based organizations — even if the organization is anti-LGBTQ or has an anti-LGBTQ record.

2019

2018

2017

Don't forget to share:

Support vital LGBTQ+ journalism

Reader contributions help keep LGBTQ Nation free, so that queer people get the news they need, with stories that mainstream media often leaves out. Can you contribute today?

Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated

Scarlett Johansson says she was “tone-deaf” about playing a transgender man in film

Previous article

Sometimes being a digital nomad really sucks

Next article