Over the past two years, efforts to roll back LGBTQ+ rights have repeatedly stumbled and stalled — or backfired altogether.
In 2025, shortly after Trump’s second inauguration, his administration abruptly revoked $6.2 million in federal funding to LGBTQ+ and HIV-focused organizations because they were tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
In July 2025, after Lambda Legal took the administration to court over discrimination, it was forced to restore that funding, which has since funded critical services such as HIV prevention, health care, and life-saving community programs.
“When we fight, we win. We know the battle is far from over and there will be setbacks along the way, but the cause is too important, and the need too great, for us to lose heart,” Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal’s senior attorney and HIV project director, said in a press release.
“[We’ll ensure] that these organizations, and the communities they serve, remain protected from unlawful government overreach.”
Even when institutions have set exclusionary practices or outright bans in motion, advocates and allies have responded with workarounds or direct aid.
In October 2025, the U.S. Tennis Association quietly banned trans women from competing in women’s events, including in recreational leagues. In response, a community of tennis players in Las Vegas launched a new trans-inclusive recreational league called “Tennis with Friends.”
“It started with a text of five people saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to play every week. We’re going to figure out a way to play. We’re not losing you,’” co-founder Valerie Witherspoon told local Las Vegas news outlet KVVU.
At first, Witherspoon thought that they would get 20 people together. Then more than 100 players signed up.
“The main word that keeps coming up is community,” she added. “These women just want to hang out with their friends.”
But anti-trans rhetoric didn’t start in a vacuum. Republican politicians and figureheads have increasingly platformed anti-trans messaging in recent years.
And as the first transgender person elected to Congress, Representative Sarah McBride has witnessed the brunt of her colleagues' “cruel” and “fearmongering” language firsthand.
Even so, McBride has not lost hope. In fact, in January 2026, McBride revealed that there is a critical line of defense when it comes to defending transgender people.
“The reality in this Congress is that because of the essential near unanimity of colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus, and the Senate Democratic Caucus, not a single major anti-trans bill or provision has passed and been signed into law by the President,” McBride told Tim Miller on the Bulwark Podcast.
“And if you had told me that when I was coming in here in November of 2024 — that not a single anti-trans bill or provision would have become law by this point in this presidency — I would not have believed it.”
At the time of publication, 63 anti-trans bills had passed in 2026 at the local and state levels. According to the Trans Legislation Tracker, 476 bills failed.
In March 2025, Representative Zooey Zephyr, the first trans woman to hold public office in the state of Montana, stopped a bill in its tracks that would have removed transgender children from their parents.
“It is painful, grueling work,” Zephyr wrote on Bluesky. “But it makes a difference.”
A year later, Kentucky Senator Gex Williams introduced a last-minute amendment to a bill that would have barred transgender people from becoming teachers in public schools. The Republican-controlled Senate removed the bill almost immediately. It was one of many anti-LGBTQ+ bills that failed across the state, thanks to petitions from locals.
“Directly impacted people showed up and testified,” Eric King, a spokesperson for the ACLU, told Queer Kentucky. “Coalitions mobilized calls and emails. Volunteers put in the work, day after day.”
And on a national scale, McBride continues to light the way. When it comes to protecting LGBTQ+ people, she is in it for the long haul. The progress made thus far in defeating anti-trans panic, she said on The Bulwark, is thanks in part to how advocates have approached it.
“It is a byproduct of an approach to navigating these issues that has allowed space for imperfect allies, for people who have questions or concerns about trans people in sports consistent with our gender identity, for people who don’t always use the right language, for people who fundamentally believe in the dignity and rights of transgender people, and that this Republican effort to fearmonger and scapegoat around us is just cruel and blatant bullying,” McBride said.
“If we create enough space for people to remain on the life raft, people will be able to remain on the life raft.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the 2026 Pride Edition of the Good Newspaper.
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