HRC sounds alarm over Trump-Vance Project 2025’s existential threat to LGBTQ+ people

Project 2025, a more than 900-page manifesto, outlines a draconian vision for a potential second Trump presidency. It threatens to unravel the fabric of protections that the LGBTQ+ community has fought tirelessly to secure. Kevin Roberts, the president of theHeritage Foundation, who authored the agenda, has said that the goal is to “institutionalize Trumpism.”

Related: What is the Heritage Foundation, the group behind the terrifying Republican Project 2025 agenda?

Kate Oakley, HRC’s senior director of legal policy, addresses the stark reality in a new video series, where she fields questions from concerned community members.

“Is Project 2025 actually likely to be implemented? Unfortunately, the answer is yes,” Oakley explains in the video. “The Heritage Foundation, who spearheaded Project 2025, prepared something similar for Trump in 2016, and by their count, Trump had implemented 64 percent of their recommendations in just the first year of his presidency. This time, the plan is written by more than 140 Trump officials, including six former members of the cabinet. The threat of Project 2025 being implemented across the federal government if Trump wins is very real, and we have to take this seriously.”

Oakley emphasized the severity of the proposed changes in a statement. “As harmful as the first Trump presidency was for LGBTQ+ Americans, the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda makes it seem quaint. It would give Trump unprecedented powers to dismantle our rights and undo many of the protections the LGBTQ+ community have spent decades fighting to gain,” she said in a press release. “That’s why no matter how much Donald Trump and JD Vance try to distance themselves from this toxic, anti-American agenda, HRC Equality Votes PAC will keep talking to voters from now until Election Day about Project 2025 and reminding them what’s at stake.”

Related: Watch: GLAAD national ad features terrifying potential future under Project 2025

The implications of Project 2025 for LGBTQ+ people are far-reaching. The plan seeks to dismantle marriage equality by privileging different-sex marriages, thus undermining the Obergefell v. Hodges decision. It also proposes allowing federally funded adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples, severely limiting their ability to create families.

In the workplace, Project 2025 would strip away non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ employees, allowing religious employees to refuse to work with LGBTQ+ colleagues and serve LGBTQ+ customers. It deprioritizes investigations into discrimination claims, making workplaces less safe and inclusive for LGBTQ+ people.

Education is another battleground where Project 2025 aims to impose regressive policies. The agenda seeks to rescind Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students, adopt a federal “don’t say gay or trans” policy, and criminalize educators who provide LGBTQ+ materials. These measures threaten to erase LGBTQ+ identities from educational spaces and deny students the right to an inclusive and affirming learning environment.

Health care, a critical area of concern, is not spared. Project 2025 proposes cutting financial support for medically necessary healthcare for transgender Americans, impacting HIV/AIDS programs, public health research, and more. It also aims to bantransgender people from serving in the military, a rollback to the discriminatory policies of the past.

HRC’s digital campaign aims to galvanize the public against Project 2025. The new website provides a breakdown of the proposed policies.

“No part of our lives would be off limits—not the doctor’s office, our classrooms, our workplaces, or our families,” Oakley said.

Watch below as HRC’s Kate Oakley answers the question: How likely is Project 2025 to be implemented?

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Original Article on The Advocate
Author: Christopher Wiggins