Trump pointing with the transgender flag overlaid and "Project 2025" appearing down the left side in every stripe

Molly Butler / Media Matters | Trump photo: Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons

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Trump's anti-trans executive orders came straight out of Project 2025

From expelling transgender troops from the military to banning gender-affirming care, The Heritage Foundation’s playbook laid the groundwork for the start of Trump’s second term

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Written by Vesper Henry

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The recent executive order banning trans women from women’s sports up to the Olympic level is the latest in Trump’s string of anti-trans mandates, which also seek to abolish legal gender recognition in favor of outdated definitions of sex and roll back Title IX protections established under Bostock v. Clayton County. Other orders declare transgender people unfit for military service and initiate restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans people under 19 years old.

All of these policies were laid out in Project 2025, the “conservative promise” spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and detailed in the initiative's policy book, Mandate for Leadership. In some cases, the language in the executive orders closely mirrors the language from Mandate on the topic.

During his campaign, both Donald Trump and Fox News tirelessly worked to distance the candidate from Project 2025. But in the days after the election, right-wing media figures were quick to confirm what was already apparent to many observers: “Project 2025 is the agenda.”

Just weeks into Trump’s second term, it appears they were right. 

  • During the campaign, Trump feigned ignorance of Project 2025 with the help of right-wing media

  • Trump downplayed his affiliation with Project 2025, even though many of its operatives were in his inner circle. At the time, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed Project 2025 “has nothing to do” with the Trump campaign, despite having appeared in a training video for the initiative herself. Many members of his administration — from the nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget to the director of the CIA — have contributed to Project 2025 in one way or another. Leavitt has since been appointed White House press secretary. [Media Matters, 8/15/24, 11/25/24]

  • Fox News backed up the candidate’s denial, attempting to create distance between Trump and Project 2025 in spite of the network’s support for the initiative. The network balked at the implication that Trump was connected to Project 2025, even after he called in to express his support for “many of the points.” Although Fox has long supported many of Project 2025’s recommendations, host Sean Hannity joined Trump in denying its relevance to the GOP’s platform. Asked about Project 2025 last July, Hannity said, “I have no freaking idea what you're talking about,” despite his interview with project director Paul Dans roughly two months prior. When former Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Project 2025, Fox News attempted to sever Trump’s connection to it, claiming, “Project 2025 … is not a Trump plan, it's not a J.D. Vance plan, it's a Heritage Foundation plan.” [Media Matters, 7/25/24, 9/4/24, 7/19/24, 7/18/24]

  • Right-wing media dropped the act immediately after Election Day. Trump’s devotees in the media celebrated the project’s imminence once he was elected. Daily Wire pundit Matt Walsh proclaimed, “Actually Project 2025 is the agenda.” Steve Bannon, who seemed to find Walsh’s revelation funny, said, “Put that everywhere.” Podcaster Benny Johnson wrote that  “Project 2025 was real the whole time.” [Rolling Stone, 11/6/24]

  • Trump’s anti-trans executive orders implement many of Project 2025’s demands and even share similar language

  • Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership claimed gender identity is part of a “destructive dogma” that “threatens American liberties.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023] Trump’s order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government” insists that “the erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact … on the validity of the entire American system.” [The White House, 1/20/25]
    Mandate for Leadership called for gender-inclusive terms to be removed from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” Highlighted terms include sexual orientation, gender, and gender equality. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023] The same executive order demands all agencies and employees “use the term ‘sex’ and not ‘gender’ in all applicable Federal policies and documents.” [The White House, 1/20/25]
    Mandate for Leadership said the next administration should “restore the Trump Administration’s Title IX regulation,” reneging Biden’s use of Bostock to expand Title IX. [Advocates for Trans Equality, 4/24/24; Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023] Trump’s executive order initiates the process of walking back what it calls “the misapplication of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County.”  [The White House, 1/20/25]
    Mandate for Leadership said Bostock’s impact on Title IX “threatens the American system of federalism … and puts girls and women in danger of physical harm.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023] Trump’s executive order calls Bostock’s expansion of Title IX “legally untenable” and claims it “has harmed women.” This position paved the way for a later order aimed at banning trans athletes from women’s sports up to the Olympic level. [The White House, 1/20/25, 2/5/25]
    Mandate for Leadership claimed that “gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service” and that those who have it “should be expelled” from the military. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]
         		 Trump’s executive order on transgender troops states, “Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.” [The White House, 1/27/25]
    Mandate for Leadership claimed the National Institutes of Health “has been at the forefront in pushing junk gender science.” The Project 2025 text called on the NIH to peddle data that discourages transition care, saying the agency “should fund studies into the short-term and long-term negative effects of crosssex interventions.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023] Trump’s executive order banning federal support for gender-affirming care for people under 19 calls World Professional Association for Transgender Health guidance “junk science.” The order, “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” says the Department of Health and Human Services should pursue a literature review on data related to minors with “identity-based confusion.” [The White House, 1/28/25]
    Mandate for Leadership called for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to discourage gender-affirming care. The Mandate for Leadership suggested the CMS should emphasize its 2016 position that it could not make a National Coverage Determination for “gender dysphoria and gender reassignment surgery.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 8/30/16] The same executive order includes “Medicare or Medicaid conditions of participation or conditions for coverage” as a target for the HHS to eliminate gender-affirming care coverage for people under 19.  [The White House, 1/28/25]

  • Many of Project 2025’s anti-LGBTQ demands already fall under the current executive orders. But there are a few more left to mandate.

  • Project 2025 calls for the criminalization of “pornography,” which it states is “manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

  • Mandate for Leadership calls for extending licenses to discriminate under the guise of “robust” religious protections. Project 2025 claims that “The Biden Administration has been hostile to people of faith, especially those with traditional beliefs about marriage, gender, and sexuality,” and that accommodations for religious employees include “issues related to marriage, gender, and sexuality.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]