The Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973, describes itself as a conservative think tank for “traditional American values.”
The group advises it “is building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish,” but according to GLAAD, their efforts don’t extend to LGBTQ+ Americans. The nonprofit catalogs anti-LGBTQ+ actions and misinformation and says the foundation has likened homosexuality to pedophilia, attacked transgender servicemembers, supported bans on LGBTQ+ books, fought against basic protections for LGBTQ+ Americans and more for decades.
The Heritage Foundation also spearheaded Project 2025, a right-wing presidential transition project prevalent in the 2024 election. Its latest “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” was drafted by individuals who worked in or alongside President Donald Trump’s first administration — and while he said on the campaign trail that he hadn’t read the 922-page agenda, many of its anti-LGBTQ+ policy proposals aligned with the positions of his campaign.
Since Trump’s victory, he has tapped many of its authors and influencers for key roles in his second administration. J.D. Vance, his vice president, also authored the foreword for the book of Project 2025 President Kevin Roberts.
Now, with Trump’s return to the White House and the implementation of Project 2025 at hand, there is growing concern within the LGBTQ+ community about the negative impacts on human rights and critical health care services.
The initiative has raised alarms due to its potential to undermine HIV/AIDS treatment, gender-affirming care, access to birth control and abortion, marriage equality, education and the repeal of workplace protections, among other concerns. Project 2025 emphasizes the importance of traditional family structures and aims to replace inclusive teaching with conservative values, an approach that could create a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ students and educators, potentially marginalizing these communities within education.
The project outlines intentions to dismantle the Department of Education, seeks to eliminate LGBTQ+-inclusive curricula and enforce the use of pronouns corresponding to students’ birth certificates, forbidding any deviation in names or pronouns.
“Project 2025 is a dangerous blueprint for what’s ahead. Florida has been the testing ground for many of these policies — book bans, attacks on LGBTQ+ families and weaponizing government agencies — and we’ve seen how devastating they can be,” says Equality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith. She co-founded the state’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization in 1997.
“What’s most concerning is how this will go national: targeting health care like HIV/AIDS treatment, health care bans on the transgender community and eliminating birth control,” she continues. “Silencing advocacy and cutting funding to organizations that stand up for their communities. Pushing censorship into every corner of schools and public life, erasing people’s voices and stories.”
Smith notes that Project 2025 would make it harder for LGBTQ+ organizations to operate. They would do so by cutting funding for health care, education and social services; intimidating donors and private funders, leaving organizations vulnerable and using government agencies to block or restrict the ability to organize and advocate. Despite these high stakes, she adds, LGBTQ+ Americans can resist these attacks.
“What we’ve learned in Florida shows that, with the right strategies and determination, these fights can be won,” she says. “They want to dispirit and scare us, but there’s a way forward. We’re building stronger grassroots networks, encouraging the community to support businesses that align with our values, and growing small-dollar donations to create a stable base of support. These approaches make us harder to silence and we are seeing our community standing strong and leaning into the work.”
Over the years, the fight against HIV/AIDS has seen remarkable progress, with antiretroviral therapy playing a crucial role in managing the virus. However, Project 2025 threatens to roll back these advancements by reducing funding and accessibility to ART. This could lead to a resurgence of HIV/AIDS cases, particularly within the LGBTQ+ community, which has been disproportionately affected by the epidemic.
Moreover, the initiative’s focus on cost-cutting measures may hinder the development and distribution of innovative treatments such as long-acting injectable therapies and mRNA vaccines, which promise to improve adherence and reduce the burden of daily medication.
Lisa Barr, Executive Director at Hope & Help Center of Central Florida, explains, “I’m most concerned about the funding implications for nonprofits, especially those that serve the LGBTQ+ and minority population and people at risk of HIV or living with HIV.”
The group was founded in 1988 and what started as case management evolved into an entire prevention team, outreach, mobile testing, a used syringe exchange program, a complete medical clinic providing primary and specialty care, and programs for patient assistance from food to insurance.
“We are trying to remove the barriers to care for people at risk or living with HIV, STIs, and Hepatitis C. We’re trying to as much as we can to get the message out to people — we’re a safe place,” she says. “We’re open to all. No judgment. We’re here for individuals and families. It’s a mission of love. We want to meet people where they are, get them healthy, and keep them healthy. Anyone who has had sex once — that’s all it takes to become HIV positive. We want people to understand that so they can protect themselves.”
Project 2025 founders have discussed withdrawing Ryan White funds and repealing the Affordable Care Act. The plan aims to restrict access to health care for transgender individuals by targeting Medicare and Medicaid.
“We are a Ryan White service provider, and we are a medical practice that provides hormone replacement therapy, so the elimination of transgender healthcare, which is covered under Medicare and Medicaid, is an area of concern as well,” says Barr.
Patients who have insurance often have it through the ACA. To continue their essential services, Barr is researching grants and private funding. Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida is one of the few states that didn’t expand Medicare, which took many lower-income, at-risk people out of medical care.
For these reasons and more, she says, anxiety is at an all-time high.
“They’re wondering what will happen and how it will impact them,” Barr explains. “The passion and compassion that this organization or anybody that’s doing work in the HIV field, you have to have a heart for it. That’s a hard pill when you think they may be doing something to take your heart out of everything you do. We try to calm everyone’s anxiety as we learn as much as possible.”
Gender-affirming care is essential for the well-being of transgender and gender-diverse individuals. Project 2025 poses a significant threat to the availability of these services.
By imposing stricter regulations and reducing coverage through public health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the initiative could make it increasingly difficult for individuals to access the medical and mental health services they need to affirm their gender identity.
The potential rollback of gender-affirming care also raises concerns about the broader implications for the transgender community. Without adequate support and resources, individuals may face increased discrimination and mental health challenges, further marginalizing an already vulnerable population.
Project No Labels CEO Claire Elisan and solopreneur spoken word activist Sam Obeid say they’re concerned about this and more. PNL works to empower Floridians through mental health care access and other initiatives.
“We’ve fought and won many of these battles before, but now we’re faced with dealing with all of it all over again, all at once and on a federal level,” they say. “As the left, we are incredibly fractured right now, and that says a lot about why we’re such easy targets for the right. If we don’t all get on the same page soon, every aspect of Project 2025 is something we will have to worry about because while [PNL is] an LGBTQ+ organization, we’re also intentionally intersectional.”
Project 2025 also threatens to inhibit access to birth control, cutting off an individuals’ right to make informed decisions about their reproductive health. It aims to restrict access by excluding popular methods like external condoms and Ella, a form of emergency contraception, from the ACA’s birth control benefits.
In contrast, the Health Resources and Services Administration’s 2021 expansion required health insurance to cover male condoms without cost-sharing, providing free access to many. Project 2025 would revoke these benefits, reinstating costs that could hinder individuals from obtaining condoms.
The project says that the president should allow employers to deny workers access to birth control coverage and defund Planned Parenthood. The sexual and reproductive health care organization provides over 2 million patients with more than 9 million services nationwide each year.
“The fact of the matter is all of these services are absolutely necessary, and folks that need them will find a way to get them,” Elisan and Obeid advise. “It just comes down to what type of danger they will be in for these medically necessary procedures, as well as choices for their bodies. Accessibility for these types of services will still be accessible for people with money and resources and will become more difficult and dangerous for low-income and BIPOC underserved communities.”
PFLAG Safety Harbor President Wendy Vernon is also concerned about Project 2025. She recently accepted an important role in representing PFLAG as the State of Florida Advocate and will work closely with the organization’s regional director, PFLAG National and Equality Florida to track legislative bills and share information to mobilize the 18 PFLAG chapters in Florida. Additionally, she will advocate at the regional level with equality organizations from Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.
“We are concerned about policies that could possibly dismantle anti-discrimination protections and/or remove terms like ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ from federal laws,” Vernon explains. “This would allow for legal discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals and restrict access to healthcare, particularly for transgender individuals.
“PFLAG Safety Harbor will continue to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, educate and empower allies to dispel harmful misinformation, and lead with love to debunk harmful statements,” she promises. “We will speak out locally, at the state level, and nationally to fight back against legislation attacking our trans and nonbinary loved ones. We support and establish safe and inclusive spaces for the community. We welcome all genders, sexualities, and abilities, treating everyone like family.”
Vernon states that advocating for inclusive policies is crucial to protect vulnerable populations from systemic discrimination and ensure equal access to resources and opportunities, especially lifesaving gender-affirming care.
Another of the project’s key goals is to challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock vs. Clayton County, which currently safeguards LGBTQ+ employees from workplace discrimination. By limiting the scope of this landmark decision, Project 2025 would undermine these vital protections.
“The new administration should restrict Bostock’s application of sex discrimination protections to sexual orientation and transgender status in the context of hiring and firing,” the project’s “Mandate for Leadership” reads. “The president should direct agencies to rescind regulations interpreting sex discrimination provisions as prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics, etc. … [and] direct agencies to focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of ‘sex.’”
Trump has already signaled support for these and other Project 2025 measures. In response, Equality Florida and other advocates are preparing to stand together, as they have against anti-LGBTQ+ measures at the state level.
“What has happened in Florida shows us how bad it can get — but it also shows us that organizing and pushing back works,” Smith asserts. “Standing up for inclusive policies is how we protect our communities and keep moving forward.
“When we organize, show up and stick together, we win,” she continues. “Florida has proven it. We are ready for whatever comes next, and we will continue to share what we learn with our colleagues across the country who look to us as they build their own strategies.”
To learn more about each of the organizations working to protect LGBTQ+ Americans, visit EQFL.org, HopeAndHelp.org, PFLAGSafetyHarbor.org and ProjectNoLabels.org.
