Here are 194 reasons why you should vote for Joe Biden on Election Day (or before)

MAY 18, 2019: Former vice-president Joe Biden formally launches his 2020 presidential campaign during a rally May 18, 2019, at Eakins Oval in PhiladelphiaPhoto: Shutterstock

If you’re part of the LGBTQ community, you should vote for Joe Biden for president on Election Day (or before if you can early vote).

Need a reason why? Here are 194 of them.

Related: Voting deadlines, registration & what’s at stake for LGBTQ voters in 2020

From the moment he stepped into the White House, President Donald Trump’s record on LGBTQ rights has continued to get worse and worse. Despite administration officials’ claims that he is the “most pro-gay president in American history,” the administration launched almost 200 attacks on the queer community. Voting for Joe Biden is your way of fighting back.

A Complete List of the Trump Administration’s Record on LGBTQ Rights

2020

• October 24, 2020 – Report shows U.S. State Department has been omitting information about human rights abuses against LGBTQ and intersex people, as well as information about violence against women and girls. The Asylum Research Center report from the UK says there’s concern the omissions will deny the existence of abuses used to make asylum claims and decisions, with LGBTQI+ people being returned to dangerous home countries.
• October 17, 2020 – Department of Education pressures New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce University to drop its trans-inclusive policy in athletics. The university agreed to rescind its policy permitting transgender athletes to compete consistently with their gender identity to avoid an investigation by the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights. A civil rights complaint triggering the threat of an investigation was filed by “Concerned Women for America,” a noted anti-LGBTQ hate group.
• October 17, 2020 – Tiffany Trump appears at a campaign event, ignores her father and his administration’s record of hundreds of attacks against the LGBTQ community, and falsely claims he supports the community. She also incorrectly spells out the letters of the LGBTQ acronym.
• October 10, 2020 – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, warned by his advance team that an event with the anti-gay Florida Family Policy Council had homophobic at the site and that the group promoted dangerous, debunked conversion therapy, appears at October 3 event anyway. State Dept. aides were reportedly appalled at the speaking event and that Pompeo touted it afterward, in a department-wide memo.
• October 5, 2020 – On the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito “take a legal baseball bat” to the court’s 2015 decision legalizing marriage equality, claiming the decision “enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe marriage equality is between one man and one woman as bigots.” Justice Thomas writes that Kim Davis, the public official who had refused to issue marriage licenses based on her religious belief, is a “victim” of a so-called “cavalier treatment of religion.”
• September 29, 2020 – Pres. Trump’s son Eric claims that LGBTQ people will “come out in full force” to support his father. GLAAD releases its scientific poll of LGBTQ voters, showing 76% support for Trump’s opponent, VP Joe Biden.
• September 26, 2020 – President Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. In her speech, Barrett says she adheres to the same judicial philosophy as the late justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented in cases advancing LGBTQ rights, including calling the Obergefell decision “a threat to American democracy.” Barrett has stated views against marriage equality, defended dissenters of the Obergefell, delivered speeches paid for by anti-LGBTQ groups and was vetted for the Trump administration by The Federalist Society, which has argued against every major LGBTQ policy proposal including extending Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to include LGBTQ workers, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, hate crimes legislation, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and transgender accommodations. At least 11 people at the White House event announcing Barrett as the nominee later test positive for COVID-19, including Pres. Trump, his wife, former senior adviser, press secretary, the president of Notre Dame University and two members of the Judiciary Committee who say they will quarantine for ten days, then attend Barrett’s confirmation hearing.
• September 18, 2020 – Within an hour of the announcement of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announces “President Trump’s [Supreme Court] nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate.”
• September 18, 2020 – Supreme Court Associate Justice and LGBTQ advocate Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at age 87. This opens up another seat on the Court for President Trump to try to fill, this one mere weeks before the Presidential election. This will allow for Trump to nominate his third candidate for the Court, and his current list (detailed below) is as anti-LGBTQ as ever.
• September 18, 2020 – Education Secretary Betsy DeVos vows to withhold federal funds from Connecticut school districts that participate in athletic conference allowing transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity. The move to withhold about $18 million intended to help schools desegregate could have national implications for both transgender athletes and students of color.
• September 16, 2020 – Trump administration deploys legal strategy to avoid enforcing The U.S. Supreme Court Bostock ruling extending protections for LGBTQ workers, pushing rules that allow shelters and schools to insist access be based only on gender assigned at birth.
• September 10, 2020 – Pres. Trump reveals additions to his list of potential Supreme Court appointees, which include Republican senators who have campaigned against marriage equality, a Trump-appointed federal judge with ties to an anti-LGBTQ organization identified as a hate group,  and Trump’s former Solicitor General who has filed briefs and argued before the Court to allow organizations to discriminate against LGBTQ people. Axios reports the list was motivated by the Court’s ruling in June 2020 to expand LGBTQ protections in the workplace.
• September 8, 2020 – The Trump administration files 36-page brief with Indiana Supreme Court to support a school’s alleged right to fire a teacher for being gay.
• August 31, 2020 – White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany falsely characterizes a State Department policy denying citizenship to children of same-sex couples born via surrogacy overseas. McEnany claimed the policy was only based on surrogacy when in fact only LGBTQ surrogacy families had been rejected. McEnany then read what she called the administration’s LGBTQ “achievements,” a list she has previously read and which has been debunked as anti-LGBTQ.
• August 28, 2020 – The Trump State Department says it’s reviewing a federal judge’s ruling with the Department of Justice, ordering State to issue a U.S. passport for the daughter of a married gay couple from Georgia and ruling her a citizen since birth. The judge had ruled the State Department policy requiring a biological connection raised serious constitutional questions for same-sex couples.
• August 24, 2020 – The Washington Post gives Trump advisor Richard Grenell four pinnochios for “The absurd claim that Trump is the ‘most pro-gay president in American history.’ The claims are deemed “whoppers” and every claim Grenell makes is discredited.
• August 21, 2020 – The State Department is fighting a ruling to recognize citizenship of a young girl with gay parents. She was born in Canada via surrogate, and although her parents are legally married and US citizens, the State Dept. argued in federal court she was “born out of wedlock” and therefore not entitled to birthright citizenship. A judge deemed the controversial State policy unconstitutional in June.
• August 20, 2020 – The lead U.S. foreign aid agency proposes a new policy on gender and women’s empowerment that eliminates any mention of transgender people or contraceptives, running counter to its own long-standing practices in deciding what programs to support. The draft policy released by the U.S. Agency for International Development doesn’t use the acronym LGBT or the words “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual,” “transgender” or “identity” at all.  Gender experts and advocates said the new policy falls far short of providing the expertise the agency needs to address gender issues in development.
• August 19, 2020 – The Department of Health and Human Services has been systematically discriminating against LGBTQ+ families in federally supported foster care programs, according to a new report from the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. The committee found that federally-funded agencies were granted a waiver to allow discrimination based on religion and sexual orientation, intentionally harming LGBTQ children, adults, and families.
• August 10, 2020 – Trump campaign senior legal adviser and the president’s personal lawyer misgenders Pennsylvania’s Health Secretary. Jenna Ellis, who has no apparent medical degree, uses Twitter to mock other efforts to control the pandemic that’s killed 163,000 people on Pres. Trump’s watch. Ellis also condemns same-sex marriage and transgender identity, and has tweeted to promote conversion therapy.
• July 29, 2020 – Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos visit a private school in Raleigh, NC, lauding its reopening for in-person education despite the coronavirus epidemic. Thales Academy founder Bob Luddy is one of the biggest Republican donors in North Carolina. Luddy also founded Franklin Academy, a Wake Forest charter school that changed its school handbook after criticism of rules prohibiting LGBT discussion or affirmation. Students protested Pence’s visit with signs promoting LGBT rights and remote schooling. Within a week of Pence and DeVos’ visit, students had to quarantine after a student tested positive for COVID-19.
• July 28, 2020 – Three years after President Trump tweeted out a ban on transgender people in the military “in any capacity,” the White House says he’s sticking with the policy. Each of the military service chiefs testified before Congress in 2018 they had no seen reports transgender service had disrupted unit cohesion during the period of open service and a Dept. of Defense poll found about two-thirds of active-duty soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines support serving alongside transgender personnel.
• July 28, 2020 – The Trump administration plans to limit work permits for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from two years to one year. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in June that the administration could not carry out its plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program because it did not provide legal justification for terminating it. Of the 640,000 “Dreamers,” 81,000 identify as LGBT and 39,000 have participated in DACA.
• July 27, 2020 – After his administration supported the losing side at the Supreme Court on LGBTQ job protections, President Trump promises to choose from a new list of conservative jurists in his next court appointments. One potential candidate is Kyle Duncan, appointed by Pres. Trump to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Duncan’s anti-LGBT record includes arguing against trans student Gavin Grimm’s request to use the restroom consistent with his gender identity and arguing against national marriage equality and calling the Supreme Court ruling in favor of it an “abject failure” that “imperils civic peace.”
• July 27, 2020 – President Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, says it’s “absurd” that her uncle believes he has support in the LGBTQ community, that he’s uncomfortable with gay people, and trans people, because “he’s uncomfortable with anyone that’s different… differently-abled, different color of skin, and different beliefs… He’s not [an] ally of the gay community, or really any community for that matter. Donald doesn’t have any concern or beliefs beyond his own self-interest.”
• July 23, 2020 – Trump administration revokes HUD regulation designed to eliminate racial disparities in the suburbs. Housing advocates say Trump’s claims about the rule are inaccurate and racist. Government research shows LGBTQ people are less likely to own a home and fear discrimination when buying a home. Only 30% of Black LGBT Americans own a home compared to 64.3% of the overall population.
• July 23, 2020 – Former leader of now-defunct conversion therapy ministry, Exodus International, reveals previous lobbying work he did with members of the Trump administration. Randy Thomas has since denounced conversion therapy and announced his engagement to Dan Scobey. “Given my experience,” Thomas said, “I believe Mike Pence is still supportive of ex-gay ministry and he supports the efforts to try to convert people from gay to straight.” Thomas also references working with Kellyanne Conway and other former Republican leaders, lobbying against marriage equality and hate crime legislation.
• July 22, 2020 – Jenna Ellis, senior legal advisor to Donald Trump, retweets an article that promotes conversion therapy. Psychologists worldwide confirm LGBTQ people cannot change their gender identity or sexual orientation through conversion therapy. The American Psychiatric Association condemns such treatment and describes any attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation as unethical. Ellis has a long record of racist and homophobic rhetoric, including criticizing her own Republican party for any attempt to embrace LGBTQ rights after the Pulse massacre killed 49 people, many of whom were LGBTQ.
• July 17, 2020 Defense Department confirms that new guidance to prohibit the display of Confederate flags on military institutions also includes bans on LGBTQ Pride flags. The Modern Military Association of America says the Pentagon is twisting the Confederate flag ban to achieve an anti-LGBTQ goal.
• July 17, 2020 – New details emerge from proposed Housing and Urban Development rule limiting access for transgender people in single-sex homeless shelters. According to text from a leaked document obtained by Vox, the rule would allow federally-funded shelters to judge a person’s physical characteristics, such as height and facial hair, in determining access to the shelter. Factors to be considered include “the presence (but not the absence) of facial hair, the presence of an Adam’s apple, and other physical characteristics which, when considered together, are indicative of a person’s biological sex.”
• July 17, 2020 – The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds lower court ruling blocking Trump administration from implementing new restrictions on people seeking asylum in the U.S. The proposal would eliminate gender-based asylum, despite dire consequences for women and girls seeking protection from extreme abuse and concerns that judges could reject similar claims based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
• July 16, 2020 – U.S. Supreme Court allows policy banning voting rights to 1.4 million potential voters in Florida. FL governor and Trump supporter Ron DeSantis and republicans in the Florida legislature voted to require ex-felons pay court fines and fees before being allowed to vote, despite an amendment passed by Florida voters in 2018 restoring their right to vote. In May, a U.S. district judge ruled that the policy amounted to an unconstitutional voting tax. LGBTQ people are disproportionately incarcerated, especially young LGBTQ people and LGBTQ people of color, because they face housing, police and job discrimination.
• July 16, 2020 – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo headlines a report from a pseudo-advisory group he appointed, criticizing efforts for racial justice and prioritizing religious freedom and property rights above all other human rights concerns. The so-called Commission on Unalienable Rights report refers to abortion, affirmative action, and same-sex marriage as “divisive social and political controversies in the United States” rather than legally determined and settled rights. Pompeo delivered his speech before a large indoor crowd, despite urgent restrictions against such gatherings because of their documented increased risk of spreading the coronavirus.
• July 15, 2020 – Former football coach Tommy Tuberville defeats Trump’s former U.S. Attorney General and former Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions in the state’s GOP primary runoff. Sessions’ record on LGBTQ issues is among the most negative for any politician in history, opposing all bills on LGBTQ equality throughout his decades in the Senate and continuing his assault on LGBTQ rights as Attorney General. Tuberville is a robust supporter of Trump, with a record of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
• July 13, 2020 – Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnamy falsely claims Pres. Trump has “a great record” with the LGBTQ community. Trump has an abysmal record of attacks on LGBTQ people, including implementing a ban on transgender people in the military, rolling back access to healthcare and homeless shelters, and defending discrimination in multiple cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
• July 13, 2020 Trump ally and harsh opponent of LGBTQ rights Andrzej Duda wins second term as president of Poland. Duda governed and campaigned against LGBTQ rights, calling them an “ideology” worse than Soviet-era communism. Duda’s nationalist-conservative party rules the Polish Parliament with an aim to symbolically and literally erase queer Poles from social and political life, making Poland the least friendly country in the European Union to LGBTQ people. Trump and Duda have met 11 times, including at the White House in June, the first foreign leader to visit since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S.
• July 10, 2020 – Anti-LGBTQ+ groups tied to President Donald Trump received loans from the Small Business Administration as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. Several anti-LGBTQ organizations receiving money are designated hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center including  Liberty Counsel, American Family Association, Pacific Justice Institute. Companies tied to Trump’s adult children, son-in-law and millionaire friends also received money. At least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed funds went to the U.S. Roman Catholic Church, with millions going to dioceses that paid massive settlements or sought bankruptcy protection after covering up for pedophile priests. The Church used special exemptions granted by the Trump administration to circumvent limitations on aid imposed on every other organization.
• July 1, 2020 – Housing and Urban Development announces new rule allowing single-sex homeless shelters to turn away transgender people, continuing a trend of dismantling protections for trans people across the federal government. HUD has acknowledged there is no evidence that transgender residents pose a risk to cisgender residents.
• June 22, 2020 – In his first in-depth response to the landmark Supreme Court ruling protecting millions of Americans from being fired for being LGBT, Pres. Trump says he was “surprised” by the decision, written by his first nominated justice Neil Gorsuch. “We’ve had a lot of losses with a court that was supposed to be in our favor,” Trump said.
• June 19, 2020 – Justice Department files “statement of interest” supporting Idaho’s new law barring transgender female athletes from competing consistent with their gender identity, a law that allows genital and genetic screenings. More than 500 college student-athletes and professional stars Megan Rapinoe, Billie Jean King, Jason Collins and Reggie Bullock, join a petition to the NCAA asking to move championships out of Idaho in response to the discriminatory law.
• June 14, 2020 – Dept. of Housing and Urban Development considers rolling back a rule requiring homeless shelters to accommodate transgender people. Single-sex shelters may consider biological sex, instead of how a transgender person identifies, in placement and accommodation decisions. HUD acknowledges it has no data to show transgender women pose any kind of risk.
• June 12, 2020 – Protections rolled back for transgender Americans seeking healthcare under new rule announced by HHS, four years to the day of the Pulse nightclub attack. Two dozen Democratic attorneys general have sued the Trump administration to block its rule ending protection against discrimination in health care for transgender patients. “It is never acceptable to deny health care to Americans who need it, but it is especially egregious to do so in the middle of a pandemic,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the coalition.

• June 8, 2020 – The Council for Global Equality calls out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for refusing to acknowledge LGBTQ Pride Month or the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia. Secretary Pompeo has promoted international policies used to deny LGBTI citizens equal rights in employment, health and education.
• June 5, 2020 – New Trump appointee to U.S. foreign aid agency USAID has a history of online attacks against the “homo-empire” pushing “tyrannical LGBT agenda.” Merritt Corrigan formerly worked for the Republican National Committee and the Hungarian embassy in Washington. She has praised authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. USAID says it has a “zero-tolerance policy of any form or harassment based on gender, race, sexual orientation, [and] religion” and is working for a world in which LGBT people are “respected and able to live with dignity, free from discrimination, persecution and violence.”
• June 4, 2020 – Support among evangelicals drops 15 points and falls 27 points among white Catholics. Pres. Trump’s handling of the George Floyd protests prompts rare rebuke from televangelist Pat Robertson. Failing to win evangelical support would imperil Trump’s re-election if he is unable to reverse it.
• June 3, 2020 – U.S. Solicitor General and seventy-six members of Congress (signed names here) file briefs at the Supreme Court to support discrimination against LGBTQ couples looking to become foster families.
• June 2, 2020 – A day after clearing protestors with tear gas, flashbomb grenades and police in riot gear, Pres. Trump signs executive order supporting “international religious freedom.” Stages another photo op in front of religious site. The Archbishop of Washington calls the visit “baffling and reprehensible.”
• June 1, 2020 – Thousands of protestors demanding justice for George Floyd and against racism and police brutality cleared by a coordinated militarized crackdown in a park in front of White House. Pres. Trump uses law enforcement officers from multiple agencies to secure his walk to St. John’s Church to hold up a Bible, surrounded by five white advisers, for a campaign photo op. Religious leaders describe the actions as hypocritical and obscene.
• May 19, 2020 – The Trump administration is using departments of State, Justice, Health and Human Services, Labor and Housing and Urban Development to push religious exemptions at the expense of LGBTQ rights, detailed by the ACLU, Center for American Progress and the Movement Advancement Project.
• May 15, 2020 – President Trump’s new press secretary Kayleigh McEnamy gives false answers about the administration’s hurtful policies against LGBTQ Americans.
• May 15, 2020 – Newly-surfaced video and audio shows Trump campaign adviser and senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis grotesquely and falsely claims same-sex marriage will lead to legally and socially-accepted bestiality and pedophilia.
• May 15, 2020 – U.S. Navy grants waiver to transgender naval officer, allowing her to remain in uniform. It’s the first waiver granted since the administration began enforcing its surprise ban against transgender service members. The government is expected to file its response to the suit filed by the naval officer in federal court.
• May 5, 2020 – HHS ruling targets LGBTQ youth during a public health crisis. The Trump administration ends LGBTQ data collection on foster children and adoptive parents, silencing issues LGBTQ-identifying children may face in finding permanent homes. Christina Wilson Remlin, lead counsel for Children’s Rights, calls it “a huge mistake that will harm the children we serve.”
• April 24, 2020 – The Trump administration moved to end a policy that protected LGBTQ patients from discrimination, potentially enabling hospitals and health workers to more easily discriminate against patients based on their gender or sexual orientation. This move alarmed health experts who warned that the regulatory rollback could harm vulnerable people during a pandemic.
• April 8, 2020 – President Trump appointed Kayleigh McEnany, who has a history of using the press to attack LGBTQ people, as Press Secretary.
• April 3, 2020 – The Trump Administration’s Department of Justice filed a “statement of interest” in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, which stated that it has a “significant interest” in ensuring that Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is interpreted as excluding transgender female athletes and applying only to cisgender females.
• March 25, 2020 – Preacher Ralph Drollinger, who leads a weekly Bible study for Cabinet Secretaries in the Trump Administration, wrote that he believes the coronavirus pandemic is a “consequential” or “sowing and reaping” form of wrath that directly stems from tolerance of “a proclivity toward lesbianism and homosexuality.”
• January 21, 2020 – Vice President Mike Pence attended a church service whose pastor used false, derogatory statements to describe the LGBTQ community.  The event was live-streamed on the White House website.
• January 16, 2020 – A directive by the Trump Administration across multiple government agencies was issued to strengthen access to federal dollars for religious-based organizations — even if the organization is anti-LGBTQ or has an anti-LGBTQ record.

2019

• December 27, 2019 – A report in the HuffPost revealed the Trump Administration’s erasure of pro-LGBTQ policies on Inauguration Day extended beyond government websites and throughout the entire federal government, including the Department of Interior.
• December 17, 2019 – The Trump Administration appoints notorious anti-LGBTQ activist Tim Wildmon to the White House’s Faith Advisory Council.
• December 4, 2019 – The Trump Administration announced its plans to tighten regulations for food stamp access under the government’s SNAP program, affecting about 755,000 Americans — including the LGBTQ community.
• December 1, 2019 – For a third consecutive year, President Trump omits any mention of the LGBTQ community during his presidential proclamation recognizing December 1st as World AIDS Day.
• November 01, 2019 – The Trump Administration announced they are allowing taxpayer-funded adoption agencies to use “religious beliefs” as an excuse to deny placement of children into homes of LGBTQ couples — simply for being LGBTQ.
• October 11, 2019 – The Trump Administration announced its support of allowing faith-based schools to use religion as a so-called “right to discriminate” against LGBTQ teachers and staff and removing pro-LGBTQ curriculum in classrooms.
• October 01, 2019 – The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sent a letter to members of the Ames City Council asking the city remove pro-LGBTQ themed crosswalks in the community, citing so-called “federal traffic control standards.”
• September 27, 2019 – The Trump Administration pens a “statement of interest” in support of granting the Archdiocese the ability to discriminate or even fire a person from their job because they are LGBTQ.
• September 20, 2019 – The Department of Education removes “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as terms to track bullying data for the agency, inserting “sex stereotyping” as a protected class instead. This eliminates any anti-LGBTQ bullying tracking data from the agency.
• September 19, 2019 – While touring San Francisco’s HUD office, Secretary Ben Carson made derogatory remarks against transgender, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming Americans, prompting some to leave the political event in protest.
• August 23, 2019 – Following accused sex offender Roy Moore’s lead, the Trump Administration submits an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• August 16, 2019 – The Trump Administration files a court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the nation’s highest court to block transgender Americans from having nationwide workplace protections.
• August 14, 2019 – The Trump Administration revealed they plan to grant federal contractors the ability to use “religious exemptions” as an excuse to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans at the workplace.
• August 14, 2019 – The Trump Administration urged the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to reverse their Obama-era policy of providing workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans. The request comes weeks before oral arguments begin at the U.S. Supreme Court on October 8.
• August 09, 2019 – President Trump took to Twitter to attack Fox News’s Shepard Smith, an openly LGBTQ news anchor for the cable news station.
• July 31, 2019 – President Trump took to Twitter to attack out gay journalist Don Lemon.
• July 25, 2019 – A Trump Administration official informs U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) that the government is separating families with parents who have HIV and AIDS, citing it as a communicable disease. However, the Administration admits they are not separating families who have other communicable diseases, such as the flu — further stigmatizing the HIV and AIDS epidemic.
• July 08, 2019 – The Trump Administration’s State Department creates a “Commission on Unalienable Rights” aimed at providing “an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy.” However, seven of the appointees have disturbing anti-LGBTQ records, putting acceptance for the global LGBTQ community at risk.
• June 28, 2019 – President Donald Trump used a press conference at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan to provide praise for Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, an anti-LGBTQ politician who has targeted LGBTQ people in his nation since the day he took office.
• June 24, 2019 – A report found the Trump Administration went to great lengths to prevent the Pride flag from flying on a flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument, because the monument is federal land. Instead, the Trump Administration donated only the flagpole to the State of New York so the Pride flag can still fly.
• June 12, 2019 – After using the Pulse shooting as a campaign move in 2016, President Donald Trump failed to recognize the third anniversary of the horrific shooting at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub, which killed 49 LGBTQ people.
• June 07, 2019 – The Trump Administration refuses to allow U.S. Embassy buildings to fly the historic LGBTQ Pride Flag on embassy flagpoles in honor of June being National LGBTQ Pride Month.
• June 05, 2019 – The Trump Administration announced they would cut federal funding for an HIV and AIDS research program being conducted by the University of California.
• June 05, 2019 – During his visit to the United Kingdom, President Trump continued to use discredited information about transgender Americans — including categorizing trans people as drug users — as a means to justify his ban on allowing transgender Americans from openly serving in the country’s armed forces.
• May 24, 2019 – The Trump Administration announced a new policy stating transgender Americans would not be guaranteed health care protections under the Affordable Care Act, potentially harming 1.5 million trans Americans.
• May 24, 2019 – The Trump Administration announced plans to begin implementing a new policy which would allow adoption agencies to deny LGBTQ couples the ability to adopt based on so-called “religious exemptions.”
• May 22, 2019 – The Trump Administration announced plans to rescind Obama-era policy which asked homeless shelters receiving federal dollars to grant transgender Americans the ability to use facilities according to their gender identity.
• May 17, 2019 – NewNowNext releases report highlighting the anti-LGBTQ record of media mogul Conrad Black, a convicted felon who was pardoned by President Donald Trump this week.
• May 13, 2019 – President Trump declares his opposition to the Equality Act, a direct flip flop from his previous stance on the issue more than a decade ago.
• May 02, 2019 – The Trump Administration, via the Department of Health and Human Services, issued a new rule allowing physicians the opportunity to deny Americans health care services based off their so-called religious beliefs, including seeking a “religious exemption” to deny life-saving health care for LGBTQ Americans.
• April 17, 2019 – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the agency would no longer be collecting data on LGBTQ youth in foster care programs.
• April 12, 2019 – President Trump and his administration implement its ban barring transgender Americans from openly serving in the country’s armed services.
• April 10, 2019 – During a House Education Committee hearing, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos acknowledged that the administration’s choice to rescind the Obama-era bathroom guidance — which added protections for transgender students — exposed trans students to additional harassment and discrimination in schools across the nation.
• April 05, 2019 – President Trump congratulates Brian Hagedorn, an anti-LGBTQ activist who wants to ban LGBTQ children from schools and believes in discredited attacks on LGBTQ Americans, for winning an election.
• April 04, 2019 – Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson refused to reinstate housing protection guidelines that would prevent LGBTQ Americans from experiencing discrimination while attaining a home, which include access to homeless shelters.
• March 27, 2019 – Education Secretary Betsy DeVos refused to say on the record whether or not she opposed discrimination against LGBTQ people at schools during a House subcommittee hearing on education appropriations.
• March 25, 2019 – Trump Administration officials within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) were accused of abusing – including harassment and denying health care services – more than 12 immigrants who identify as LGBTQ.
• March 12, 2019 – In a late night decision, the Trump Administration announced plans to implement its ban on transgender service members from openly serving in the country’s armed forces according to their gender identity, impacting more than 13,000 service members currently who are enlisted.
• March 11, 2019 – In its Fiscal Year Budget for 2020, the Trump Administration announced new plans to cut $250 million from the Global Fund, slash $1.5 billion from PEPFAR, and “limit future spending” on Medicaid – three components in the ongoing fight against HIV and AIDS.
• February 27, 2019 – During a House Armed Services Subcommittee hearing on the administration’s ban on transgender services members from serving openly in the armed forces, Trump Administration officials used derogatory phrases such as “a transgender,” but they also called gender-confirmation surgery a “disqualifying surgery,” comparing it to having cancer, heart disease, or diabetes.
• February 08, 2019 – One day after defending a Michigan adoption agency during the National Prayer Breakfast, the Trump Administration confirms they intended to grant faith-based adoption agencies federal funds in its upcoming 2020 White House Budget. These faith-based adoption agencies actively use “religious exemptions” as an excuse to deny LGBTQ families the ability to adopt a child.
• February 07, 2019 – At the annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Trump praised Second Lady Karen Pence for teaching at an anti-LGBTQ school and defended a Michigan adoption agency for refusing to serve an LGBTQ family based on so-called “religious exemptions.”
• January 28, 2019- President Trump meets with Ginni Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and anti-LGBTQ group Groundswell at the White House. According to news reports, Ms. Thomas led a meeting with President Trump at the White House where participants denounced transgender Americans and claimed the historic, nationwide marriage equality ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court was “harming the fabric of the United States.” The Supreme Court is on the verge of deciding whether to take up a case regarding Trump’s ban on allowing transgender service members from serving in the nation’s armed forces.
• January 3, 2019- The Trump Administration approved a waiver request by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, which could give faith-based adoption agencies the ability to deny LGBTQ couples adoption rights based on so-called “religious exemptions” — all while using government tax dollars.
• January 11, 2019- More than 13,000 federal workers identifying as LGBTQ do not receive a paycheck as President Trump’s government shutdown becomes the longest shut down in U.S. history.
• January 03, 2019- In a leaked memo by the Justice Department, the Trump Administration considers dissolving the “disparate impact” regulation, which grants marginalized communities (including LGBTQ Americans) legal protections from unintended discrimination in housing, education, and other ways of life.
• January 01, 2019- NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine invites Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, to visit the United States. Rogozin, a politician, is vehemently anti-LGBTQ and even compared the community to ISIS.

2018

• December 21, 2018- The Department of Justice issued a “Statement of Interest” on a pending case involving the University of Iowa and an anti-LGBTQ student organization. The DOJ sided with the student group that indirectly bars an LGBTQ person from joining their organization. This indirect discrimination is known as a “disparate impact” form of discrimination.
• December 20, 2018- The Trump Administration tightens its regulations on access to food stamps, affecting about 1 in 4 LGBTQ adults who apply for the SNAP program.
• December 19, 2018- The Trump Administration discharges two service members in the Air Force after disclosing their HIV-positive status to the Department of Defense.
• December 09, 2018- The Trump Administration quietly shuts down a HIV research facility in Montana after the administration objected to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its scientists using fetal tissue as a part of its research to find a cure for HIV and AIDS.
• November 30, 2018- The Trump Administration signs a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that makes it clear the United States doesn’t have to proactively combat anti-LGBTQ discrimination in order to adhere to the agreement.
• November 23, 2018- The Trump Administration asks the United States Supreme Court to circumvent federal appeals courts and issue a ruling on transgender Americans’ right to serve in the military.
• October 25, 2018- In an ongoing effort on the part of the Trump Administration to replace “gender” with a biological-essentialist definition of “sex”, U.S. officials at the United Nations are seeking to replace mentions of “gender”, e.g. “gender-based violence”, with alternative terminology, like “violence against women,” erasing all references to gender identity and the issues relating to trans and gender non-conforming people.
• October 24, 2018- The Department of Justice writes in a brief to the Supreme Court that it is legal to discriminate against transgender employees based on their gender identity, saying that banning sex discrimination under Title VII in the workplace does not extend to transgender workers.
• October 21, 2018- The Department of Health and Human Services proposes in a new memo to change the legal definition of sex under Title IX, requiring individuals to identify according to their gender assigned at birth. This change in legal definition would remove nondiscrimination protections for transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals.
• October 01, 2018- The Trump Administration’s State Department announces a new policy that the same-sex, unmarried partners of United Nations employees will not be granted visas to stay in the U.S., effective immediately. In doing so, diplomats in same-sex partnerships who come from countries where same-sex marriage is illegal will either be forced to marry in the U.S. and risk repercussions, including threats, harassment, and even incarceration back home; quit their jobs; or separate for the sake of one partner’s career.
• July 30, 2018- President Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces his new ‘Religious Liberty’ Task Force at the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Summit. As stated by Sessions, the group’s purpose is to ensure that the Justice Department upholds the administration’s guidance for religious exemptions, which he released in October.
• July 9, 2018- President Trump nominates Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court seat made vacant by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh has an extremely conservative record and has the support of Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council (FRC).
• May 11, 2018- The Trump Administration rolls back protections for incarcerated transgender people that were intended to mitigate their exposure to sexual assault and abuse, allowing the Bureau of Prisons to “use biological sex as the initial determination for designation” when placing trans people for housing, screening, and programs and services.
• May 3, 2018- President Trump signs an executive order to create a new “White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative” that will be tasked with working on so-called “religious liberty” issues across federal agencies.
• April 18, 2018- Reporting reveals that President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief gave a sizable grant to the anti-LGBTQ group Focus on the Family Africa on Sept. 18, 2017.
• April 10, 2018- Reporting reveals that the White House is seeking to roll back vital data collection on LGBTQ youth by raising the minimum age that LGBTQ people can be asked questions about their sexual orientation and gender identity in the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey.
• March 23, 2018- Reporting reveals that the Trump Administration worked closely with Tony Perkins, head of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council, to draft their latest policy to implement Trump’s ban transgender soldiers from openly serving in any capacity within the United States armed forces.
• March 23, 2018- President Trump announces a reworked attempt to ban all transgender people from serving in the military in response to the implementation of his original policy being frozen by four different federal courts who declared it likely to be unconstitutional.
• March 20, 2018- The Department of Housing and Urban Development defends the Trump Administration’s decision to remove guidelines from its website intended to prevent anti-LGBTQ discrimination in homeless shelters by arguing that transgender women accessing shelters make people “not comfortable.”
• March 20, 2018- The Department of Education once again states that it is the Trump Administration’s position to refuse to protect transgender students denied access to bathrooms and lockers based on their gender identity, even when faced with court rulings reaffirming that transgender students are protected under Title IX.
• March 13, 2018- President Trump fires Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and announces plans to nominate anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim politician Mike Pompeo as his replacement.
• March 8, 2018- President Trump hosts Brent Bozell, the anti-LGBTQ founder of the fringe right-wing group Media Resource Center, at a White House roundtable.
• March 5, 2018- The Department Housing and Urban Development Secretary moved to change its official mission statement by removing promises of inclusive and discrimination-free communities.
• February 28, 2018- Following Billy Graham’s death, Trump overlooks his anti-LGBTQ record and praised the work of Franklin Graham who has used the legacy of his father to advance extreme anti-LGBTQ messaging including attacking LGBTQ families and claiming that Satan is behind LGBTQ advocacy.
• February 12, 2018- The Department of Education officially confirms they will not investigate or take action on any complaints filed by transgender students who are banned from restrooms that match their gender identity.
• January 19, 2018- Reporting reveals that Trump administration appointee Carl Higbie had made extreme racist, sexist, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ comments on the radio. He was removed from his White House position but then hired by “America First Policies,” a nonprofit created by six of Trump’s top campaign aides to back the White House agenda.
• 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.
• January 16, 2018- President Trump promotes anti-LGBTQ religious exemptions in his Religious Freedom Day proclamation.

2017

• December 29, 2017- President Trump fires the entire White House Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
• December 22, 2017- President Trump signs the GOP tax bill, which targets low-income and LGBTQ communities, into law.
• 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.
• December 5, 2017- White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells reporters that President Trump backs the position that businesses owners should be able to put up signs saying they won’t serve gays.
• December 5, 2017- The Department of Justice argues in support of baker who denied service to a gay couple during the Supreme Court oral arguments for the case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
• 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.
• December 1, 2017- President Trump leaves the LGBTQ community and people of color out of his World AIDS Day Proclamation.
• October 17, 2017- President Trump delivers the keynote address at the anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation President’s Club annual meeting.
• October 16, 2017- In a profile on Vice President Mike Pence that ran in the New Yorker, President Trump reportedly joked of Pence when asked about LGBTQ rights: “Don’t ask that guy—he wants to hang them all!”
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• October 6, 2017 – The Department of Health and Human Services rolls back the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit, allowing the use of “religious exemptions” to deny health care to women, trans men, and gender non-conforming people who rely on the no-copay contraception benefit.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• September 8, 2017- Reporting reveals the CIA canceled a planned speech about diversity and LGBTQ rights set to be given by Judy and Dennis Shepard, founders of the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
• September 7, 2017- The Justice Department files an amicus brief in support of so-called “religious exemptions” to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans.
• September 7, 2017- The Education Department announces they will roll back Obama Administration-era Title IX guidelines which protected sexual assault survivors on college and university campuses.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• August 27, 2017- Reporting reveals the CIA consulted with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ hate group.
• August 25, 2017- President Trump officially directs the Pentagon to move forward with his ban on transgender service members openly serving in the U.S. Military. The discriminatory policy is due to take effect take effect March 23, 2018.
• August 25, 2017- President Trump pardons former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a criminal known for terrorizing the Latinx community with inmate abuses, unjustified arrests, and racial profiling.
• August 12, 2017- President Trump refused to condemn white supremacists who chanted violently racist and anti-LGBTQ slogans during a rally in Charlottesville, VA.
• 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.
• 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.”
• 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.
• July 26, 2017- President Trump bans transgender service members from serving in “any capacity” in the U.S. military, threatening to fire 15,000 currently serving troops over Twitter.
• July 25, 2017- Reporting reveals Vice President Mike Pence advocated for the removal of healthcare benefits for transgender servicemembers within the U.S. military behind closed doors.
• 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.
• July 12, 2017 – President Trump grants a one-on-one interview with Pat Robertson, a longtime anti-LGBTQ activist and Televangelist.
• 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.
• 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.
• June 28, 2017 – The Department of Justice ejected reporters covering a DOJ Pride event hosted by LGBTQ affinity groups for federal workers.
• June 27, 2017- The Trump Administration failed to mention the LGBTQ community in their National HIV Testing Day statement.
• 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.
• June 17, 2017- Six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS resigned saying that President Trump “simply does not care” about combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• June 15, 2017- The Department of Education rolls back the Office for Civil Rights’ expansive approach to investigating civil rights complaints that to protect LGBTQ students, and other marginalized communities, from discrimination at school.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• May 22, 2017- The Trump Administration grants White House press credentials to a “reporter” from Infowars, a conspiracy outlet that regularly peddles dangerous, offensive and anti-LGBTQ content.
• May 8, 2017- Department of Agriculture issues new so-called “religious freedom” policy statement, a move praised by the anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council.
• May 4, 2017- President Trump signs a “religious liberty” executive order. Although this EO does not target LGBTQ Americans, it is the first step in what could be a more broader permission slip for discrimination against the overall LGBTQ community.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• March 28, 2017- Under his proposed budget for the U.S. Congress, The Trump Administration offered to cut HIV and AIDS research funding under the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
• 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.
• March 20, 2017- 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.
• February 22, 2017- With help of Attorney General Sessions, President Trump rescinded Title IX protections for transgender students in our nation’s schools.
• February 02, 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.
• January 27, 2017- President Donald Trump issued an executive order to indefinitely ban Syrian refugees from entering the United States. This ban includes LGBTQ refugees fleeing the nation in fear of discrimination.
• January 20, 2017- Minutes after Donald Trump was sworn into office, any mention of the LGBTQ community was erased from White House, Department of State, and Department of Labor websites.