America may have made a lot of strides when it comes to LBGTQIA+ rights (it’s hard to believe that same-sex marriage wasn’t even legal nationwide a decade ago!), but that doesn’t mean the battle is over. In fact, thanks to the publication of Project 2025, a political initiative by a conservative think tank, we know there are many politicians who aren’t just aiming to curtail LGBTQIA+ rights, but to remove existing ones altogether.
The potential enactment of Project 2025 has many people concerned, especially members of the queer community, thanks to the wide-sweeping measures it proposes to take against them in the name of promoting so-called “American family values.” Here’s what you need to know about what Project 2025 has to say about the LGBTQIA+ community.
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025 is essentially a political wish-list of policy changes dreamed up by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation (you can thank them for some of former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court Justice picks, it brags on its website — you know, the Supreme Court Justices who recently dismantled Roe vs Wade).
The document, which was published in 2022, has four main goals: “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life; dismantle the administrative state; defend the nation’s sovereignty and borders; and secure God-given individual rights to live freely,” according to the BBC.
How does it aim to achieve that? Well, Project 2025 has plenty of disturbing action items packed within its hundreds of pages, explicitly taking aim at abortion rights, climate change policies, funding for education, immigration laws, and LGBTQIA+ rights, reports the outlet. It also aims to give more power to the executive branch, so even independent government agencies like the Department of Justice have to answer directly to the president.
Basically, the president’s abilities will become supercharged if those behind Project 2025 have their way — definitely not ideal, regardless of the candidate you root for.
What does Project 2025 want to do with LGBTQIA+ rights?
Project 2025 devotes plenty of word count to rhapsodizing about the need to protect traditional family structures, claiming, “Every threat to family stability must be confronted.” In their eyes, that partially means attacking LGBTQIA+ rights and drastically reducing protections for the community. Some proposed measures include:
- Getting rid of anti-discrimination protections for the queer community by removing terms like “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from federal rules and regulations.
- Limiting the reach of the 2020 Supreme Court Decision Bostock v. Clayton County, which ruled employees are protected from discrimination because of sexual orientation. thanks to Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964. It only applies to “the context of hiring and firing,” Project 2025 argues — “not bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes, or other laws prohibiting sex discrimination.”
- Getting rid of LGBTQIA+-inclusive curriculum in public schools. The document explicitly describes “gender ideology” as “poison for our children.”
- Banning teachers from calling a student by a name or pronoun that’s different from the one on their birth certificate.
- Making it so employers also wouldn’t have to call someone by a name or pronoun different from their birth certificate.
- Eliminating transgender healthcare options with Medicare and Medicaid.
- Likely eliminating all gender-affirming healthcare for minors. “Allowing parents or physicians to ‘reassign’ the sex of a minor is child abuse and must end,” reads the document.
- Forbidding transgender people from serving in the military. It would also remove people with HIV from serving in the military as well.
- Get rid of the United States’ LGBTQIA+ equality initiatives abroad. It wouldn’t just be about giving up on LGBTQIA+ rights in America, but giving up on them across the globe, too.
The Bottom Line
The idea of Project 2025 being implemented has a lot of people scared, and rightfully so: America would look significantly different if all of Project 2025’s proposed legislation was passed, especially for members of the LGBTQ+ community. There are dangerous concepts in there that would erode many people’s rights and even potentially transform the United States into a Christian theocracy.
But Project 2025 isn’t a reality — not yet, anyway. That’s why it’s important people learn what this initiative wants from the U.S. government, and who is backing these ideas. Education is crucial to fighting back against harmful policies — the braintrust behind Project 2025 clearly knows that, with its focus on changing the current school curriculum.
