Project 2025’s reforms threaten the progress toward equality for the LGBTQIA+ community. Framing queer identities as a threat to society, Project 2025 fuels and supports the discrimination of LGBTQ+ individuals through harmful rhetoric and policy initiatives that serve as major setbacks for equality.
The most disturbing and baseless claim put forth by Project 2025 is that the “propagation of transgender ideology” equates to pornography and the sexualization of children. According to Project 2025, all librarians and educators who use materials with this “pornography” should be “classed as registered sex offenders,” further promoting the false belief that a transgender identity is synonymous with explicit content.
This rhetoric promulgates the false narrative that transgender individuals are dangerous, thus subjecting them to discrimination, social stigma and violence based on lies. Project 2025’s call to remove transgender identities from school settings is extremely harmful to LGBTQ+ youth, many of whom already face mental health challenges due to bullying and rejection by their peers. Schools with inclusive curriculums provide a safe environment for students of all identities to express themselves. Ignoring the necessity for inclusion based on an incorrect characterization of transgender identities sets American society decades behind in the progress toward equality.
Project 2025’s broader calls to eliminate the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from federal legislation demonstrates the plan’s overall stance on LGBTQ+ rights. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that LGBTQ+ individuals cannot be fired based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, thus affirming the basic right for queer individuals to exist without workplace discrimination. Removing specific references to “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in federal legislation makes such discrimination harder to challenge under federal law, opening up the possibility for discrimination throughout employment, housing, healthcare and education.
Project 2025’s rhetoric, which vilifies LGBTQ+ individuals for seeking equal protection under the law and representation in society, deepens divisions within our nation. Instead of championing Project 2025’s discriminatory policies, we should be working towards a future in which all people, regardless of how they identify, have equal opportunity to succeed and thrive in the United States.
