President Donald Trump continued to push anti-transgender rhetoric Tuesday at his first congressional address of his second term.
He touted executive orders that aim to restrict the rights of transgender Americans from the military, participating in school sports and obtaining government documentation that matches their gender identity.
“We are getting wokeness out of our schools and out of our military and it’s already out and it’s out of our society, we don’t want it,” Trump said. “Wokeness is trouble, wokeness is bad, it’s gone. It’s gone. And we feel so much better for it, don’t we? Don’t we feel better?”
But anti-trans policies can cause significant harm to the transgender community. Trump has continuously waged attacks on the community throughout his campaign, transition to office, and first six weeks in power. The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ youth, has repeatedly reported increased volume on its lifeline, chat and text crisis services, as Trump marched back to the White House, including a 700% increase the day after the election.
Here is what LGBTQ+ advocates had to say about Trump’s remarks.
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GLAAD: Guests of honor were ‘deployed to smear transgender people’
Ahead of the address, LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization GLAAD said Trump would use two paid-spokespeople for anti-LGBTQ groups as guests of honor to “smear transgender people.”
After touting his executive order to ban transgender women from sports, Trump mentioned Payton McNabb, who was in attendance Tuesday. McNabb was injured in a high school volleyball game against a transgender player. She is listed as an ambassador for the Independent Women’s Forum, which lobbies for anti-trans policies, GLAAD said.
January Littlejohn was also in attendance and received a mention from the president. As Trump told it, Littlejohn discovered her kid’s school “had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old.” But records obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network, show that Littlejohn had worked with the school to navigate the changes before suing the district with a law firm dedicated to fighting “gender identity ideology.”
“The Trump White House is using the address to Congress to continue its baseless and unhinged disinformation campaign against transgender Americans,” GLAAD said in a statement ahead of the address.
‘Pathetic and ignorant:’ Lambda Legal CEO says Trump stoked fear and misinformation
Lambda Legal, an organization working on impact litigation, education programs and policy advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights for more than 50 years, has already sued this administration several times.
CEO Kevin Jennings said Trump’s false claim that trans and nonbinary people don’t exist was an attack on their lives.
“President Trump’s remarks were, frankly, pathetic and ignorant,” Jennings said in a press release statement. “The president’s words, designed to stir fear and amplify misinformation, serve only to marginalize and harm those who already face immense barriers and discrimination. Let’s be clear: Trump’s words and policies are an assault on decades of civil rights progress and anti-discrimination protections.”
Human Rights Campaign: ‘We will never cower to a bully’
LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign called Trump a “bully” who they refused to back down from.
“Tonight, Donald Trump stood before the American people and tried to rewrite history, painting himself as a leader when in reality, his legacy is chaos, cruelty, and corruption,” president Kelley Robinson said in an emailed statement to USA TODAY Wednesday. “If Trump’s lips are moving, he’s lying–and recklessly harming American families of all kinds. But he isn’t a king, he can’t erase the LGBTQ+ community, and the American people are sick of him using us to distract from his failures.”
The HRC has also sued the Trump administration.
Contributing: Ana Goñi-Lessan, Tallahassee Democrat
Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected], and follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley.
