Making Sense of the Trump Administration’s Anti-LGBTQ+ Executive Orders

NOTE: This blog was published on February 4, 2025. Since then, the Trump administration has issued new executive orders impacting our community. For more up-to-date information, visit our page, “Information for LGBTQ+ People Under the Trump Administration.”

Blog by Ricardo Martinez, Executive Director

As we expected, we’ve seen multiple directives coming from the Trump administration in its first two weeks with the potential to affect the lives of LGBTQ+ people and their families. I know it’s overwhelming and you’re worried. GLAD Law will do our very best to keep you up to date.

Executive Orders Explained

To begin, most of the new directives came in the form of Executive Orders (EOs) from President Trump. So what, exactly, is an EO? 

An EO is a directive from the President, usually issued to guide federal agencies in their work.

EOs cannot change federal law, like Title VII and Title IX, which provide protections to LGBTQ+ people. 

EOs can’t change our constitution and the protections we have as LGBTQ+ people under it. They cannot change the role of our courts in interpreting laws and their constitutionality.

Further, state laws still exist and, in many areas, they can address some key concerns we have heard from community members. Visit our LGBTQ+ Protections page for information we have compiled in response to actions at the federal level.

That doesn’t mean EOs cannot cause harm, chaos and confusion, as we saw last week with an order that froze federal funding. 

Implementing EOs can take time and if they’re unconstitutional, they’ll be challenged in court, as we have seen with an EO purporting to end birthright citizenship

In fact, GLAD Law and our partner organizations are already challenging some of the new directives attacking transgender people, which we’ll dive into next.

Sex Discrimination Executive Order

This order is an attempt to regulate and control people’s lives. The Trump administration wants to define all people by their reproductive capacity—an alarming attempt to undo the basic protections that allow transgender people to go about their daily lives. It’s about dictating how trans people, and their families will be allowed to live.

This EO does the following:

  • directs the State Department to stop issuing passports that accurately reflect a trans person’s gender
  • directs the Bureau of Prisons to deny incarcerated transgender people healthcare and appropriate housing
  • directs the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reverse rules that give trans people safe access to shelters
  • requires federal agencies to remove mention of gender identity from language and forms

STATUS: GLAD Law was first to file a challenge to Sections 4(a) and 4(c) of this EO, which directs the federal Bureau of Prisons to house transgender women in men’s prisons and to unlawfully withhold necessary medical care. Last week, we secured a temporary restraining order in our case Maria Moe v Trump that prevented our client, a transgender woman, from being transferred to a men’s facility and ensured her continuing necessary medical care. We are now awaiting the judge’s further orders in this case, and have filed a second case in D.C. on behalf of incarcerated transgender women also at risk of transfer to a men’s facility and withdrawal of medical care.

Transgender Military Ban Executive Order

This is an order that intends to ban transgender people from enlisting and serving in the military.

Transgender service members must meet the same objective qualifications as everyone else. If they can meet those criteria, it’s harmful for everyone to deny them enlistment or subject them to discharge. Skill, discipline and courage—that’s what matters to military service, not identity.

STATUS: GLAD Law and NCLR filed a federal lawsuit on January 28 challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order barring transgender people from serving and enlisting in the military. On February 3, we filed for a preliminary injunction in the case, known as Talbott v. Trump, to keep the EO from being implemented during the lawsuit. On February 4, we filed a motion for a temporary restraining order, asking the court for an emergency ruling to stop service members from being separated unlawfully.

Restricting Health Care for Transgender Adolescents Executive Order

This order is intended to be a broad ban on health care for transgender young people under age 19. It seeks to deny coverage for medically necessary care to transgender dependents of federal employees and seeks to ban federal funding for any healthcare organization that provides this necessary and proven healthcare for transgender people under 19. 

This EO continues the Trump Administration’s extreme, needless, and unconstitutional attack on vulnerable transgender Americans. It will deliberately make the daily lives of a very small group of young people and their families painful and more difficult—it’s simply cruel and wrong. 

STATUS: The implementation of this order cannot happen overnight. There is no immediate legal reason for hospitals or clinics to change the care they are providing to transgender youth. While we have unfortunately heard reports of a handful of hospitals pausing care, the majority are continuing to provide care as usual.

We fully expect this executive order to be challenged because it is blatantly unconstitutional. It’s important to remember that a president’s powers are not unlimited—the constitution, federal courts and our democratic system serve as a defense against this type of overreach. 

Removing Protections for LGBTQ+ Youth Schools Executive Order

This EO tries to tell schools to deny the existence of transgender people altogether. It attempts to ban federally funded educational institutions from respecting the identities of transgender and gender non-conforming students, including blocking them from using the correct restroom or participating in athletics, and forces schools to out student to parents if the student requests to be referred to with a different name or pronoun, even if the outing could put the student at risk of harm.

STATUS: While this Executive Order focuses on funding-mechanisms, the legal obligations our public schools have to protect all students’ right to learn remain unchanged. No Executive Order can change the expertise and dedication teachers bring to supporting every learner in the classroom. Fostering supportive environments where every student feels valued and can thrive is as important as ever. We expect this order to be challenged in court.

Please continue to check this space for news and updates about policy changes that affect LGBTQ+ people and their families and how GLAD Law and our partners are responding to each of them. If you have specific questions or concerns about how these changes may affect you individually, please contact us at GLAD Law Answers, our free and confidential legal information and referral service. 

Please take care of yourself, and others as you can. We’re stronger together.

Get the latest on GLAD Law’s work toward justice
by joining our email list