Project 2025: The Erasure Playbook – What It Means for LGBTQ+ Rights

In the middle of a historic election cycle, one of the most sweeping political manifestos in American history is quietly being preloaded for activation. It’s called Project 2025, and it’s not only a policy platform — it’s a plan to remake the U.S. federal government from the inside out.

*Official branding for Project 2025, a political initiative led by The Heritage Foundation.*

But buried inside the 920-page blueprint are dozens of proposals that would reshape — or erase — LGBTQ+ protections across healthcare, education, employment, and civil rights. The authors call it “restoring the natural order.” But for millions of Americans, it’s a roadmap to legal invisibility.

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what is project 2025?

A close-up of official Project 2025 materials distributed by The Heritage Foundation, featuring the program’s branding and mission. Framed as a “Presidential Transition Project,” this initiative outlines a rapid reengineering of the U.S. federal government — with sweeping implications for civil rights, LGBTQ+ protections, and democratic governance.
(Image via VERIFY/TEGNA)

Launched by The Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a four-part initiative designed to equip the next Republican president with the personnel, legal framework, and ideological foundation to radically transform the U.S. government within the first 180 days of office.

It includes the following, some of which have already been exercised:

A Presidential Personnel Database to replace up to 50,000 federal employees with vetted loyalists
A detailed policy book called Mandate for Leadership 2025
A “Presidential Administration Academy” to train those operatives in enacting the new agenda
A transition playbook to be executed immediately after Inauguration Day

The goal?

To dismantle the so-called “administrative state” and reorient federal power toward traditionalist, Christian nationalist values.

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LGBTQ+ policy targets

*A protester outside The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. holds a handmade sign condemning Project 2025 as a “fascist playbook.”*

Project 2025 proposes the total rollback of LGBTQ+ inclusion in federal law, public health, education, and civil society. Here’s what that actually means:

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1. Title IX and Civil Rights Law

The plan advocates narrowing the definition of “sex” under Title IX and Title VII to apply only to biological sex assigned at birth, effectively stripping civil rights protections for transgender, nonbinary, and gay individuals in:

Schools and universities
Workplace discrimination cases
Federal grant guidelines
Public accommodations

It also calls for reversing Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which currently protects LGBTQ+ workers under Title VII.

The effect? Legal discrimination returns, dressed up as “religious liberty.”

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2. Health care and gender-affirming care bans

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would be renamed the “Department of Life” and restructured to:

Ban all federal funding for gender-affirming care
End coverage of transition-related procedures through Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA
Halt all transgender-related research
Penalize any federally affiliated provider offering such care

These recommendations reflect Heritage’s published stance that transgender identity is pathological and gender-affirming care constitutes child abuse.

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3. Education and public schools

Project 2025 proposes eliminating the Department of Education entirely, handing power to the states while enforcing:

Mandatory use of birth names and pronouns unless parents explicitly consent
Federal bans on gender-inclusive restrooms or sports
Defunding of schools that promote “gender ideology”
Removal of DEI staff and curriculum from all federally funded institutions

The plan treats trans visibility in classrooms not as a civil right, but as a moral emergency.

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4. Data, language, and public communications

A rainbow Pride flag waves in front of the U.S. Supreme Court during a nationwide demonstration for LGBTQ+ rights. Protesters rallied to protect workplace protections, gender equality, and civil rights — many of which are now under threat by proposals outlined in Project 2025.
(Image source: Change.org)

Federal agencies would be directed to eliminate terms like:

LGBTQ+
Gender identity
Reproductive rights
Equity
Inclusion

In practice, this means:

No data collection on LGBTQ+ health outcomes
No federal funding for global LGBTQ+ human rights
No public mention of gender diversity in official policy

This isn’t about banning drag shows or book titles — it’s about systematically erasing language from the legal record.

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5. Employment & Federal Contracting

Project 2025 would rescind executive orders that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in federal workplaces and contracts, including:

Biden’s EO 13988
Obama’s EO 13672
DEI-related funding across all agencies

Federal contractors and even grant recipients could once again deny services, jobs, or housing to LGBTQ+ people, backed by religious exemptions.

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the deeper intent

Supporters claim these policies restore order and protect children. But the larger pattern is clear:

This is not reform.

It’s removal.

A systematic attempt to eliminate federal recognition of queer and trans life in nearly every branch of government. Not just from protections, but from memory.

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if implemented

“When tyranny comes, it will be wrapped in legality.”

— Charles Evans Hughes, U.S. Chief Justice

If Project 2025 becomes policy under a future administration:

Trans youth would lose access to care and recognition
LGBTQ+ workers could be legally fired
Teachers would be required to misgender students
Federal websites and forms would erase gender-inclusive options
U.S. foreign aid for LGBTQ+ human rights would vanish

This is a regression not just of law, but of cultural visibility.

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the new battleground

The real battle isn’t loud — it’s slow, procedural, buried in administrative code.

Not waged in the open, but deep inside federal systems where identity is quietly redacted, rights are rewritten, and the machinery of erasure clicks forward, one policy file at a time.

At first glance you might think it’s a culture war, but the truth is that it’s a bureaucratic purge.

And if it’s not stopped, it won’t need tanks or riots.

It will rewrite reality with nothing more than paper, ink, and silence.