What’s on Trump’s 2025 transgender agenda

Medical procedures for transgender minors, sometimes referred to as gender-affirming care, have occupied a place in public discourse for several years, becoming an important issue in 2024 presidential elections.

“I feel like President Trump is likely to do something about so-called gender-affirming care for minors early in his presidency,” said Jay Richards, a cultural affairs researcher at the Heritage Foundation. Washington Examiner.

Richards said he thinks this will likely take the form of blocking federal funding for transgender medicine for young people and could also include an official definition of gender as exclusively male and female.

“Much of the legal and administrative battle over the last few years has been because we didn’t really have a federal definition of gender and male and female,” Richards said.

In August, Trump promised that on the first day of his presidency he would sign an executive order “directing every federal agency to stop promoting sex or gender reassignment at any age.”

Jon Schweppe, policy director of the conservative American Principles Project, told The American Principles Project. Washington Examiner that the president-elect also discussed changing federal safety standards for hospitals and health care providers to receive Medicare and Medicaid funds as a tactic to effectively ban the use of transgender medications in minors.

“I think we’re going to see kind of a cacophony of different policies that will lead to what the final policy shape of this administration and the Republican Party will be,” Schweppe said.

Transgender advertising key to Trump’s victory

Schweppe said the transgender issue became a core message after Trump’s campaign ended, making it a key tool to influence voters ahead of Election Day.

“I think ultimately, as reviews of this race are being written, it seems almost everyone agrees that the transgender issue played a huge role in defeating Kamala, including Democrats,” Schweppe said.

Trump’s biggest advertising campaignfor the amount of $11 million, the target of which was the vice president Kamala Harrissupport for taxpayer-funded transgender-related surgical procedures for trans-identified inmates. Advertisement with the slogan “Kamala is for them. “President Trump is here for you,” aired more than 30,000 times in swing states.

The ad uses a clip from Interview 2019 between Harris and transgender rights activist Mara Keisling, in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate referenced her time as San Francisco district attorney when she started a program to help transgender prisoners.

In keeping with the theme of the ad, Richards hopes Trump will also take action to prevent trans-identified biological men from being placed in women’s prisons. Were a few outstanding ones biological cases of men in women’s prisons committing sexual assaults on female prisoners since 2020.

“The idea that a man should be able to associate with female prisoners just because he identifies as a woman is an attack on justice,” Richards said, noting that prison issues receive far less attention than women’s sports, bathroom issues or procedures involving people. transgender for minors.

Departmental Elections and Transgender Agenda

Republicans are also optimistic that Trump’s cabinet picks and other agency leadership nominees will play a positive role in rolling back the Biden administration’s pro-transgender policies.

Schweppe said Republicans are encouraged by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, and his skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry, although the fight against transgender medicine is not a big part of his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign.

“I think as he starts to work to look at the involvement of drug companies in this, what their motivations are, and how they are potentially advertising hormones and puberty blocking drugs for uses that they shouldn’t be used for, I think he’s going to be very interested,” Schweppe said.

Transgender legislation in Congress

Two bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, respectively, that Richards believes could gain enough support next year to pass.

The Definition of male and female nudeintroduced in July by Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), states that gender is an observable, binary characteristic and not “determined by reservation or self-identification.”

Senator Roger Marshall’s (R-KS) bill introduced in December would ban gender reassignment procedures for minors and authorize the HHS secretary to “impose civil penalties on persons who perform gender reassignment procedures on minors.”

Schweppe also hopes the power of the budget will be used to ban federal funding not only for medical procedures for transgender people, but also funding for gender equality clinics, including Planned Parenthood.

“I think it’s very likely that some Republicans will go one way or another,” Richards said. “I think they’re going to have to feel the heat of the Republican base to do the right thing.”

According to Related press exit poll since the November election, a majority of all voters (55%) said support for the broad transgender movement “has gone too far.” This includes 85% of Trump voters and 24% of Harris supporters.

Almost half, 47%all voters reported support for legislation banning treatment for transgender minors, including 55% of parents of children under 18.

The future of transgender medicine for minors

Richards said he didn’t think cross-sex hormone treatments, puberty-blocking drugs and surgery on minors “won’t last long on this Earth.”

In mid-December, the UK introduced indefinite ban on puberty blocking drugs in minors, warning that the drugs pose an “unacceptable risk to the safety” of children. National Health Service in March announced a plan to ban puberty blockers except for use in clinical trials with the intention of improving research into the drug’s safety and effectiveness in treating severe gender dysphoria.

The change comes as a result of an independent review of the evidence on puberty blockers and sex hormones, commissioned by the NHS and led by renowned British paediatrician Hilary Cass, which found insufficient support for their continued use.

Five others European countries including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France and Finland have also significantly restricted access to puberty blocking drugs and sex hormones in recent yearss, prescribing them only when the patient meets strict eligibility criteria.

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Richards predicted that the practice would end in the United States within the next three to five years, either due to legislative intervention or due to medical malpractice lawsuits filed by people who went through the transition process as minors and came to regret, that they are treated as adults.

“If the court grants a retired person a settlement in one of the many ongoing lawsuits, then the cost of malpractice insurance for these procedures will increase and doctors will have to stop performing them,” Richards said. “Realistically, I think it will probably end up with a combination of both state and federal legislative action and civil court action.”