Trump’s efforts to attack and erase the LGBTQ community during his first year in office have been harmful and far-ranging 

NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today released research on 45 instances where President Trump has selectivity targeted the LGBTQ community during his first year in office.  
 
Throughout the year, the Trump Administration has issued constant attacks on the health and well-being of the LGBTQ community through the creation of one of the most anti-LGBTQ cabinets in recent history, vehement support for religious exemptions that seek to undermine non-discrimination laws, and bigoted polices that target the transgender community including a proposed trans military ban. 

“Trump is waging a culture war with our communities, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime. He aims to roll back rights and protections, but also general acceptance of LGBTQ people in society and culture,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “Our voices and our visibility will yield change even in an administration that tries at every step to delete us from the cultural landscape. We will not be removed.”

GLAAD has refused to back down on any these fights and will continue to hold this administration accountable with our Trump Accountability Project and by joining the voices of countless LGBTQ Americans who are sending a clear message to 45: We are not going anywhere. 

1. January 20, 2017 – Minutes after Donald Trump was sworn into office, any mention of the LGBTQ community were erased from White House, Department of State, and Department of Labor websites.  
    

2. February 2, 2017 – ABC News reports that after previously committing to protecting LGBTQ Americans from discrimination, President Trump and his administration had drafted a “License to Discriminate” executive order which would usher in across-the-board discrimination against the LGBTQ community.  
    

3. February 22, 2017 – With help of Attorney General Sessions, President Trump rescinded Title IX protections for transgender students in our nation’s schools.  
    

4. March 20, 2017 – The Trump Administration erases the LGBTQ community from The National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants and the Annual Program Performance Report for Centers for Independent Living, key surveys that are used to help provide care to American seniors – including disability, transportation, and caregiver support needs. 
    

5. March 24, 2017 – President Trump appointed anti-LGBTQ activist and former Heritage Foundation employee Roger Severino to lead the Health and Human Services Civil Rights Office, putting the LGBTQ community at risk of losing access to critical and affordable health care. 
    

6. March 28, 2017 – The Trump Administration cancels plans to add the LGBTQ community to its upcoming 2020 U.S. Census, a survey conducted every decade by the federal government to help collect data about living Americans and the United States of America. 
    

7. April 10, 2017 – A ProPublica investigation reveals the Trump Administration appointed James Renne, a key staffer involved in the Bush-era anti-LGBTQ purge of gay government employees, to a senior role at the Department of Agriculture. 
    

8. April 14, 2017 – The Trump Administration files to dismiss a lawsuit accusing North Carolina of discriminating against the LGBTQ community in response to HB2, despite the similarities of the HB142 replacement. 
    

9. May 23, 2017 – The Trump Administration reveals their budget which includes proposed slashes to programs and departments critical to the LGBTQ community, including Medicaid, Planned Parenthood, and the Center for Disease Control’s HIV and AIDS programs. 
    

10. June 1, 2017 – President Trump declines to issue a presidential proclamation designating June as LGBTQ Pride Month, breaking with an eight-year precedent set by President Barack Obama to honor and support LGBTQ Americans during Pride Month. 
     

11. June 7, 2017 – President Trump nominates Stephen S. Schwartz, who worked with North Carolina legislators in support of the anti-trans legislation HB2, to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. 
     

12. June 15, 2017 – The Department of Education rolls back the Office for Civil Rights’ expansive approach to investigating civil rights complaints that protect LGBTQ students, and other marginalized communities, from discrimination at school. 
     

13. June 15, 2017 – The Department of Education invites Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, two anti-LGBTQ organizations, to be speakers for a day-long conference on engaging fathers in their children’s education and welfare. 
     

14. June 15, 2017 – Department of Commerce removes sexual orientation and gender identity from the agency’s Equal Employment Policy; LGBTQ protections have been explicitly included since 2010. Only after fierce opposition did Department of Commerce Secretary Ross change it back. 
     

15. June 16, 2017 – An obtained internal memo from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights reveals guidelines to dismiss complaints about bathroom access filed by transgender students. 
     

16. June 21, 2017 – Reporting reveals President Trump hired a lawyer who openly supported Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anti-LGBTQ law banning so-called “gay propaganda” from Russia, a law that Europe’s top human rights court found to be illegal. 
     

17. June 27, 2017 – The Trump Administration failed to mention the LGBTQ community in their National HIV Testing Day statement. 
     

18. June 29, 2017 – Reports revealed President Trump hired anti-transgender activist, Bethany Kozma, to the Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Rights at the US Agency for International Development. 
     

19. July 10, 2017 – In a closed-door and unannounced opportunity, President Trump poses for a photograph with notorious anti-LGBTQ activists who wish to promote so-called “religious exemptions” that would harm LGBTQ Americans across the nation. 
     

20. July 12, 2017 – President Trump grants a one-on-one interview with Pat Robertson, a longtime anti-LGBTQ activist and Televangelist. 
     

21. July 13, 2017 – President Trump nominates Mark Norris, who supported legislation that allowed mental health counselors to discriminate against LGBTQ clients during his time as a TN state senator, to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. 
     

22. July 26, 2017 – President Trump announces his proposed bans on transgender service members from serving in “any capacity” in the U.S. military, threatening to fire 15,000 currently serving troops over Twitter.   
     

23. July 26, 2017 – The Justice Department files a brief opposing workplace nondiscrimination protections for the LGBTQ community under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the case Zarda v. Altitude Express. 
     

24. July 26, 2017 – An official White House webpage directs readers to an article published by the anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation that calls being transgender a “psychological disorder.”    
     

25. August 3, 2017 – President Trump nominates L. Steven Grasz, who has close ties to the anti-LGBTQ group Focus on the Family, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. 
     

26. August 12, 2017 – President Trump refused to condemn white supremacists who chanted violently racist and anti-LGBTQ slogans during a rally in Charlottesville, VA. 
     

27. August 27, 2017 – Reporting reveals the CIA consulted with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ hate group. 
     

28. September 5, 2017 – President Trump ends the DACA program, which protected an estimated 800,000 young undocumented immigrants, including 36,000 LGBTQ DREAMers, from detention and deportation. 
     

29. September 7, 2017 – President Trump nominates Gregory Katsas, who worked behind the scenes to promote the implementation of the trans military ban and revoke federal guidelines that protect transgender students from discrimination, to the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Circuit of D.C.  
     

30. September 7, 2017 – President Trump nominates Jeff Mateer, who has an extensive anti-LGBTQ record including calling trans children part of “Satan’s plan,” to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. 
     

31. September 7. 2017 – The Justice Department files an amicus brief in support files an amicus brief in support of so-called “religious exemptions” to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans. 
     

32. September 22, 2017 – The Education Department rescinds the Obama Administration-era Title IX guidance on investigating campus sexual assault; LGBTQ students experience sexual harassment at disproportionately high rates. 
     

33. October 3, 2017 – The Department of Health and Human Services erases all mentions of the LGBTQ community and their health needs in its strategic plan for the fiscal year 2018-2022. 
     

34. October 5, 2017 – In a Department of Justice memo, the Trump Administration reverses a policy that provided non-discrimination protections for transgender people in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 
     

35. October 6, 2017 – The Department of Justice issues a sweeping “religious exemptions” guidance which invites taxpayer-funded federal agencies, government employees, and government contractors to legally discriminate against LGBTQ employees as long as they cite a religious belief as the reason for doing it. 
     

36. October 11, 2017 – The Trump Administration’s National Park Services withdrew its sponsorship of New York City’s first permanent Pride Flag, located outside of the historic Stonewall Inn, and dropped out of its pre-scheduled participation in the flag dedication ceremony.   
      

37. October 13, 2017 – President Trump becomes the first sitting president to speak at the Family Research Council‘s Values Voter Summit, a convening of fringe groups united around discrimination against LGBTQ people. 
     

38. October 17, 2017 – President Trump delivers the keynote address the anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation President’s Club annual meeting. 
     

39. December 1, 2017 – President Trump leaves the LGBTQ community and people of color out of his World AIDS Day Proclamation. 
     

40. December 4, 2017 – President Trump endorses Roy Moore, who has a violently anti-LGBTQ record and multiple well-documented accusations of sexual assault, abuse, and assessment, in the Alabama special Senate Election.   
     

41. December 5, 2017 – White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells reporters that President Trump backs the position that wedding businesses owners should be able to put up signs saying they won’t serve gays. 
     

42. December 15, 2017 – Staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at were instructed not to use the “transgender,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” and “science-based” in official budget documents. 
     

43. December 22, 2017 – President Trump signs the GOP tax bill, which targets low-income and LGBTQ communities, into law.  
     

44. January 16, 2018 – President Trump promotes anti-LGBTQ religious exemptions in his Religious Freedom Day proclamation.  
     

45. January 18, 2018 – The Department of Health and Human Services created a new department that shields healthcare workers who refuse to treat LGBTQ patients or those living with HIV by calming moral or religious objections.