The anti-trans movement is sadly going to outlive Trump’s presidency

[Jessica_Rose ✅]

The anti-trans movement is sadly going to outlive Trump's presidency

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/12/the-anti-trans-movement-is-sadly-going-to-outlive-trumps-presidency/ 🔗

Faefyx Collington (8 Dec 2025)

It's easy to feel like Trump and the anti-trans movement are one and the same. He's certainly pushed forward plenty of anti-trans talking points through his campaign ads, executive orders, stacking of the Supreme Court, and pressure on legislatures.

The anti-trans movement rose alongside Trump, and he certainly used it to his own ends: He has used it as a distraction from other issues and to drive his cult. He has done massive damage using it, but he never created or defined the anti-trans movement. Anti-trans bills started being proposed in legislatures in 2015, with just 19 bills the year before Trump won his first election, to 1,012 bills this year.

When Trump leaves office —a third term isn't truly likely, and his health might not see him to the end of his current term — some of the anti-trans measures will likely fall away. When Biden took office, he reversed Trump's first trans military ban, and that will likely be the fate of the current ban under the next Democratic president. Other things, especially those based on Supreme Court rulings, will likely take longer to shift.

For an idea of just how much of this anti-trans hate is going to stick around — not just in impotent rage but in very real harm — we can look overseas, especially to Britain. One of the United Kingdom's leading exports to the United States over the past few years has been its transphobia.

[jackiefox5585]

I think there is always going to be sort of a anti trans movement. Not accepting things is in human nature sadly. It might be accepted to a point where the majority of the outside world is generally a safe space. But in general there will always be groups who won't accept it.

For example consider this: despite the fact that we were able to roughly calculate the size of the earth over 2000 years ago people still think its flat!

[KathyLauren]

Unless the next administration deems the Republican Party to be a terrorist organization (I'm not holding my breath for that...), there is not much chance of reversing the damage.  Too much of it is at the state level.

[Lori Dee ✅]

there is not much chance of reversing the damage.  Too much of it is at the state level.

Exactly.

The initial push was to appease Trump and gain his favor for various reasons (almost all financial). However, it evolved into passing state laws and amending state constitutions to solidify the rhetoric into something that will outlast the President.

Democratic-run states took notice and followed suit to protect LGBTQ rights, as well as other human rights. If the trend continues to escalate, we could be faced with a very divided nation, more divided than we are now or have ever been.

Historians have been watching, and some claim we have not seen this since the Civil War. That is a scary omen.

[jackiefox5585]

Exactly.

The initial push was to appease Trump and gain his favor for various reasons (almost all financial). However, it evolved into passing state laws and amending state constitutions to solidify the rhetoric into something that will outlast the President.

Democratic-run states took notice and followed suit to protect LGBTQ rights, as well as other human rights. If the trend continues to escalate, we could be faced with a very divided nation, more divided than we are now or have ever been.

Historians have been watching, and some claim we have not seen this since the Civil War. That is a scary omen.

While I am positive people will be angry or even violent towards one another. I think a civil war is highly unlikely. We might talk about it, or imagine finally being free from the other side but to go through with it is another matter. A war on U.S. soil in this day and age would be so ugly and brutal it simply wouldn't be worth it.

we are talking about service outages, randomly having property seized, MASSIVE drafts and food shortages. That' is just for starters. As the US is a hub for so much economic activity, there would be global chaos. China would certainly make the move for taiwan. Russia would get even more aggressive. In comparison to that things like tax cuts, trans rights, or whatever is going through congress would seem trivial.

Also consider that more U.S. soldiers died in the civil war than in almost every war since.... combined (note I am just saying U.S. soldiers not total people as that title would easily go to WWII. I'm only noting losses the united states suffered to emphasize how disastrous a civil war would be)

Things might seem bad, but they would have to get unimaginably worse before a civil war would be remotely worth it.

[Asche]

The transphobia predates Trump.   North Carolina's HB2 was in early 2016 (i.e., before Trump's first term), and the ballot initiative to repeal the Houston anti-discrimination ordinance (which was defeated by a campaign that had transphobia as its centerpiece) was in 2015.

The state (and local) laws are a result of a multi-decade push by heavily funded right-wing organizations to put right wing candidates in local and state offices.  These organizations looked for a group that could be easily demonized, and they picked trans people.  We're a "wedge issue."  Just as in Houston in 2015, they demonized trans people to distract voters from the other awful stuff they were doing.  And they're still doing it.

In Trump's first term, he wasn't able to do all that much damage, because he's an incompetent.  In this term, he's teamed up with powerful, well funded organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Project 2025 people, who are the ones making the policies.  And they won't go away when Trump is gone.

I remember, when same-sex marriage was legalized by the (US) Supreme Court, a lot of "LGBT" organizations closed up shop, because the people running them believed they had won the battle they cared about.  Unfortunately, they forgot that these battles are only won for a short time.  Every progressive issue has to be refought every generation, if not more often.