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

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

What could Trump do while in office? THE Project 2025 political manifesto gives some clues.

A model for discrimination

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

It contains input from more than 110 groups on key policy and personnel 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 sought to distance himself from the manifesto during the campaign. However, many contributors played roles during Trump’s first term. This includes Stephen Miller, who is should be named deputy chief of staff for policy during his second term. Miller’s group, America First Legal, supported the 2025 plan.

In 2022, Trump too said projects of the Heritage Foundation:

This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail the 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 removal of anti-discrimination policies that protect the LGBTQ+ community. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), this means deletion all federal regulations and rules prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

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

The plan also calls for abandoning policies allowing transgender people to serve in the military. And he advocates blocking gender-affirming medical care for transgender people in federal health care programs, such as Medicare.

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

The foreword to the manifesto says that in America today,

children are suffering from the toxic normalization of transgender with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.

The suggestion that transgender identity and drag queens are synonymous with an unclear definition of “pornography” is particularly troubling. The document further recommends that educators and public librarians who “provide pornography” be classified as registered sex offenders.

The plan does not specifically target marriage equality. However, mention is made of the “biblical” definition of marriage and family. A few believe this treats same-sex unions as “second-class marriages.”

Trump’s record on LGBTQ+ issues

Beyond the 2025 project, there are other worrying signs. Trump will not be a president acting in the best interests of LGBTQ+ Americans.

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

As president, so does Trump opposite a proposal Equality Act. 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 reintroduced by Democrats last year and failed to pass the Senate.

During his first termTrump also:

• supported employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ people
• prohibits transgender people from serving in the military, and
• rolled back Obama-era anti-discrimination protections.

Additionally, his anti-LGBTQ+ insults food antagonism and divisions that lead to increase in hate speech.

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

Attack on LGBTQ+ rights at the state level

The ideology behind some of Project 2025’s anti-LGBTQ+ proposals is already very visible at the state level in the United States.

In 2024 alone, the ACLU has follow up 532 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the United States. These include:

• 208 bills restricting the rights of students and educators
• 70 bills on religious exemptions
• 112 on health care restrictions, and
• 34 bans on freedom of speech and expression (including 27 bans on swiping).

Protests against drag queens’ storytime children’s literacy activities have led to increased surveillance of public libraries, as well as false allegations such events are funded by taxpayers.

Under pressure from conservative activists, companies have also withdrawn from their commitments to LGBTQ+ inclusion. For some, this includes not participating in Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index.

Constitutional challenges

Additionally, the ACLU warns the Trump administration could use federal law as a weapon against transgender people. For example, the group says, it could override critical state-level protections, arguing that state laws that protect transgender students violate the federal statutory rights of non-transgender students.

The ACLU also expressed concerns that the Trump administration could take the “extreme position” that the U.S. Constitution allows employers to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people based on their religious beliefs, notwithstanding anti-LGBTQ+ laws. state discrimination.

Many of the anti-LGBTQ+ policies outlined in Project 2025 would likely be violate 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 role to constrain the Trump administration’s agenda. However, Republicans now hold a majority in the Senate and could have a majority in the House of Representatives.

This means that activists hoping to challenge anti-LGBTQ+ policies will need well-coordinated action. Action Coalition for Equality at the federal, state and local levels in order to spark change and block any discriminatory policies that may arise during Trump’s second term.