Donald Trump’s administration initiated a sustained, years-long effort to erase protections for LGBTQ people. This included an effort to “define ‘transgender’ out of existence,” erode protections for transgender students and workers, and weaken access to gender-affirming health care that most transgender people already struggled to access.

While President Joe Biden’s administration reversed much of the Trump-era abuses, just last month on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to dismantle a new Biden administration policy that will offer protections for transgender students under Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.

The ACLU is prepared to defend the LGBTQ community, including transgender individuals, from a second Trump administration’s anticipated attempts to weaponize federal law against them. Learn more in our breakdown:

The Facts: Trump has promised that, if reelected, his administration will rescind federal policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and will assert that federal civil rights laws don’t cover anti-LGBTQ discrimination. In addition to rolling back existing protections, a second Trump administration will proactively mandate discrimination by the federal government wherever it can. Lastly, and perhaps most ominously, if Trump returns to the White House, we expect his administration to use federal law – including laws meant to safeguard civil rights – as a cudgel to override critical state-level protections for transgender students and to force state and local governments, as well as private organizations, to allow or even perpetuate discrimination

Why It Matters: A second Trump administration would strip LGBTQ people of protections against discrimination in many contexts, including employment, housing, education, health care, and a range of federal government programs. The Trump administration’s proposed policies would ban transgender people from serving openly in the armed forces and block gender-affirming medical care for transgender people enrolled in federal healthcare programs, such as Medicare. The effects of these cruel – and unconstitutional – discrimination efforts would be devastating, as thousands of transgender people would immediately lose access to needed medical care and the right to live freely without fear. In essence, a potential second Trump administration would seek to erase transgender people from public life entirely by using federal laws – including obscenity laws – to criminalize gender nonconformity.

Trump on LGBTQ Rights

In the second installment of the ACLU’s election 2024 memo series, our experts detail the threats a potential second Trump administration poses to the

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

How We Got Here: The Trump administration was openly hostile toward the LGBTQ community and vehemently opposed the Equality Act, which would have ensured that existing civil rights protections cover sexual orientation and gender identity in the way that they already do for race, disability, veteran status, and more. The Trump administration also blocked basic job protections for LGBTQ people, insisting that employers should be free to fire workers for their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration also eliminated nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people established under the Affordable Care Act.

Critically, the Trump administration had an enormous impact on the courts, including the Supreme Court. Getting courts to understand the experience of transgender people and the impact of discriminatory policies on their lives was difficult even before Trump reshaped the judiciary. It is that much harder today because of the viewpoints of the judges and justices Trump appointed to the federal courts and Supreme Court.

Our Roadmap: Should a second Trump administration take office, the ACLU will use the courts to affirm that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under federal law, to invalidate policies mandating discrimination across the federal government, and to shut down Trump’s expected efforts to weaponize the Constitution and federal laws to require discrimination against LGBTQ people by state and local governments and private entities.

Litigation is not our only pathway to push back against anti-LGBTQ policies. Congress can, and must, use the power of the purse and its oversight and investigative authorities to constrain a second Trump administration’s extreme anti-LGBTQ agenda. The ACLU will aggressively lobby members of Congress who support the transgender community to use the appropriations process, in particular, to hinder Trump’s ability to mandate anti-trans discrimination and weaponize federal law against LGBTQ rights.

The ACLU also has a comprehensive state-level plan of attack. We will advocate for states and school boards to protect LGBTQ students by enacting guidance regarding updating student names and pronouns, and by creating inclusive rules on gender-based activities, best practices for school records, and ways to support transgender students living under a federal government that discriminates against them. We’ll also urge states to support policies that prevent their governments from being complicit in a second Trump administration’s efforts to attack the legitimacy of transgender people in our world. Lastly, we will mobilize public support on behalf of vulnerable children and youth to deter further draconian policies and help reshape the political narrative around transgender justice.

What Our Experts Say: “We have seen the disastrous consequences of a hateful campaign targeting LGBTQ people and their families with discriminatory laws, forcing many from their home states and denying many more the freedom to get the health care they need to live their lives openly, and even to decide what name to go by. We are determined to use every tool at our disposal to oppose any attempt to deny LGBTQ people the freedom to live and love freely and openly.” – Mike Zamore, national director for policy & government affairs

“For four years, President Trump and his administration left no stone unturned in their effort to attack the right of LGBTQ people to live and work as who we are. We fully expect a second Trump administration to go further, weaponizing federal law to override state level protections and mandate discrimination by schools and health care providers nationwide. Regardless of the election’s outcome, we stand ready to fight to uphold the fundamental freedom we are guaranteed by the Constitution to live our lives as we choose.” – James Esseks, director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.

What You Can Do Today: As wave after wave of extreme measures to criminalize and strip trans people of rights and safety continue, the time to act is now. Tell your members of Congress to protect trans people from discrimination today.

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This op-ed was originally published in Tampa Bay Times.

I have joined the board of the ACLU of Florida.

When first asked, I declined, wary of recent discord. But I was encouraged to stand for election and help right the ship. Two months in, I feel good about my decision, especially after spending quality time with staff at a Saturday gathering in Miami.

The American Civil Liberties Union is a controversial group, no question. But controversy is something I know something about from having led the opinion pages of two major Florida newspapers. I signed on because the ACLU’s core values — fighting government abuse and defending civil liberties, including the freedom of speech, religion, assembly, privacy, due process, voting, and equal protection — are at my core, too.

No matter your politics, the ACLU has probably annoyed you. For when it comes to defending people’s rights, it’s an equal-opportunity fighter, even if it means, as one former director said, “defending my enemy.”

I’m not a fan of the NRA, but I’m proud that the ACLU represented the National Rifle Association in a case decided last week by the U.S. Supreme Court. The case involved a New York regulator who tried to coerce banks to blacklist the organization. By successfully defending the NRA, the ACLU reinforced everyone’s First Amendment protections against vengeful government leaders.

Perhaps most famously, 47 years ago, the ACLU defended the free-speech rights of neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, Ill., where hundreds of Holocaust survivors lived. If government can squelch speech it finds offensive, it can prevent any speech it dislikes.

This week, ACLU-Florida went to court to fight Florida’s new book-ban law. Consider: if you want a book banned and the school district refuses, you can appeal to Tallahassee. But if you don’t want a book banned, you get no appeal. Talk about viewpoint discrimination.

Our lawyers also are fighting Florida’s “Stop Woke” law, which restricts how college professors can discuss systemic racism and sex is crimination for fear students might be made uncomfortable. History is full of uncomfortable truths. The danger of government censorship is one of them.

We are also fighting a new anti-immigrant law that says only citizens, not legal residents, can register people to vote. The law keeps Spanish-speaking residents from participating in voter registration drives.

And we’re fighting the new law that defines street protests as riots and lets participants be charged with felonies. I’m reminded of the civil rights protesters who walked across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, only to be beaten with billy clubs and sprayed with tear gas. If that were to happen in Florida today, those freedom marchers would become convicted felons.

In the last year, the Florida ACLU has faced internal disruption and reorganization. The national organization dismissed the state board. There’s a lawsuit, so I can’t say more. But from where I sit, the reboot has revitalized the organization.

At our Miami gathering, I saw an energized staff engaged in a noble mission. We’ve also hired a dynamic new executive director familiar to many South Florida residents: Bacardi Jackson, a seasoned litigator who graduated from Stanford University and Yale Law School, and spent the past four years at the Southern Poverty Law Center. She is the right leader at the right time.

Jackson takes the torch from the legendary Howard Simon, who served as executive director for more than two decades before retiring in 2018 and returning as interim director last August.

I am joined on the new 14-member board by doctors, lawyers, professors and administrators with a diversity of viewpoints who stand ready to support our executive director in defending your rights.

I tell you all this because it’s a discouraging time in our country. People on both sides of the aisle believe our democracy is threatened and no one is working the halls of government for us. But you should know that ACLU staffers are there, trying to advance your rights.

The ACLU is a nonpartisan, public policy membership organization supported by grants and donations. I hope you will join me in supporting the ACLU-Florida. It’s a righteous cause.

Rosemary Goudreau O’Hara is a board member for the ACLU of Florida, and the former opinion page editor of the South Florida Sun Sentinel and The Tampa Tribune. She lives in Dunedin.