This piece originally appeared on 19th on 8/10/25 and appears here with permission.
By Kate Sosin
After Donald Trump’s first election as president, there was a glimmer of hope in the eyes of LGBTQ+ Americans. At least for a Republican, maybe he wouldn’t be so bad for the queer community. The former reality star made promises. He said would be a “friend” for LGBTQ+ people. He swore he would protect them.
And all indications were that his past suggested that he actually did it. In 2000, during the Reform Party’s short-lived bid for the presidential nomination, Trump advertised in LGBTQ+ magazine The Advocate that his upbringing in New York had instilled in him a kind of tolerance. He said he had no problem with hiring gays.
“I like the idea of amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include a prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” he told The Advocate. “It would be simple. It would be simple.”
Trump’s promise to update the Civil Rights Act didn’t come out of nowhere. LGBTQ+ advocates have campaigned for the same in the form of the Equality Act, which has failed to gain congressional approval since 1974.
Today, the idea of Trump supporting the Equality Act, which would ban discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in major areas of public life, seems far-fetched. But 25 years ago – or even 10 years ago – Trump’s name was not synonymous with homophobia or transphobia. The real estate mogul described himself as agnostic on social issues, if not liberal.
It was only after he took office and began courting major anti-LGBTQ+ organizations that Trump’s policies included a number of anti-trans policies. Trump has previously expressed indifference and even support for transgender people.
His past statements and behavior raise solemn questions about the sincerity of his current antipathy towards transgender people. Does he really want to erase transgender people from public life? Or are they an unfortunate tool for currying favor with staunch conservatives? Would the president admit to any of them? And in the end, does it matter?
In 2012, when he co-hosted the Miss Universe pageant, Trump praised that year’s Miss USA, Olivia Culpo, for saying that transgender women should be allowed to run.
“But today, where there are so many surgeries and so many people who need changes to live happier lives, I accept it because I believe it is a free country,” she added. said Culpo, who was later crowned Miss Universe.
“She answered a great question, a very difficult question – regarding transgender people – a question that everyone wants to hear, she gave a great answer and she really did a great job,” Trump said of Culpo on Fox and Friends in June 2012.
CNN also took notice that Trump lifted the ban on transgender people in his own competitions and invoked Olympic rules that allow transgender women to compete.
As recently as 2016, Trump repeatedly stated that transgender people should employ whatever bathrooms they thought would be appropriate.
Even though Trump began to strongly oppose same-sex marriage in 2016, he continues to do so he was still quoted in the press saying that former Olympian turned reality star Caitlyn Jenner can employ “any bathroom she chooses” in her own Trump Tower.
Most notably, in 2016, Trump opposed North Carolina’s House Bill 2, one of the first bills of its kind in the country to require people to employ the bathroom that corresponded to their gender at birth. The measure cost the state an estimated $3.7 billion in boycotts from businesses, sports leagues and artists. It was fully repealed in 2020.
According to The New York Times.Trump noted that there were very few issues that precipitated the ban.
“North Carolina did something – it was very strong – and it is paying a high price for it,” Trump said. “And there are a lot of problems. And I heard – one of the best responses I heard was from a commenter yesterday who said, leave it as it is, right now.”
In 2016 The New York Times summarized his candidacy that Trump was simply the more gay-friendly option among the GOP presidential candidates this year, noting that he supports transgender people using public restrooms and is said to be the first owner of a private club in Palm Beach, Florida, to welcome a gay couple.
Charlotte Clymer, a transgender writer and activist, said she remembered the community fearing Trump as a Republican before he took office in 2016.
“But it wasn’t like he was attacking transgender people then, wasn’t it,” she said. “I remember that no one I followed expressed deep concern about Trump’s feelings toward the transgender community.”
All this is a far cry from today’s Trump, who has made it a point to eliminate transgender people from public life a hallmark of his second administration.
But in his first term, supporters were still unsure what kind of president he would be for LGBTQ+ Americans, said a spokeswoman for the queer media nonprofit GLAAD, who asked that her name not be used because the organization’s employees now face threats of violence for speaking to the press about LGBTQ+ issues.
“GLAAD leadership began implementing the Trump Accountability Project on the administration’s first day in office when they noticed they had removed all mentions of LGBTQ from the White House website,” the spokesperson said. “That is why we have been documenting policies and statements since that day.”
At the time of publication Trump accountability tracker counted 367 attacks by both Trump administrations on LGBTQ+ Americans.
Asked to comment on Trump’s evolution on queer and trans issues, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson released the following statement in full:
“Woke Democrats want to destroy girls [sic] they play sports and threaten their private space, allowing men to compete with them and infiltrate their locker rooms and bathrooms. Millions of Americans agree with President Trump’s adoption of common-sense policies to protect women. The woke left’s support for transgender people for all is a disgrace!”
In his January inaugural address, Trump promised that his federal government would recognize only two genders: male and female. He kept that promise — attempting to prevent transgender people from updating their passports, removing mentions of Trans-Americans from national monuments, issuing an executive order banning transgender girls from participating in extracurricular sports, reinstating the ban on transgender people serving in the military, cutting funding for LGBTQ+ programs, and attempting to circumvent federal law by posting transgender women held in federal prisons with men.
GLAAD said it’s complex to determine what has changed for Trump from 2015 to the present that has caused him to take such a tough stance on transgender issues.
Clymer believes it was straightforward policy. Transgender people, she said, are a tool Trump is using to piss off Republican Party hardliners.
“I think making transphobia the centerpiece of his presidency is mostly about pandering to his base and the bottom line of whoever was last in his ear at any given moment, and it just so happens that the vast majority of people he listens to are anti-transgender,” Clymer said. “I think you know that if tomorrow his closest advisors told him to either chill out on transphobia or even become neutral on trans issues again, he would do so immediately.”
GLAAD research shows that less than 30 percent of Americans know a transgender person. Trump is part of that 30 percent. He knew transgender contestants in his beauty pageants and was friends with Jenner before he took office.
But Trump is also aware that he is in the minority and uses that to his advantage, GLAAD found.
Ultimately, whether Trump truly feels hostility toward the LGBTQ+ community doesn’t really matter, Clymer said.
“What are the political implications of his presidency?” she asked. “If you look at his policy record, he is by far the most anti-LGBTQ president in history.” 🔥