Feds quietly scrub transgender people from national security reports on threats to LGBTQ+ community

The Trump administration’s campaign to extinguish transgender visibility has moved into the mechanics of national security, stripping transgender people from federal intelligence bulletins that are supposed to keep all Americans safe.

Related: No LGB without the T — queer community protests Trump's transgender erasure at Stonewall

As first reported by investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, federal threat assessments drafted ahead of Pride Month this year omitted any mention of transgender people, instead referring to the “LGB+ community.” Klippenstein, a Washington-based reporter known for exposing government secrecy, obtained the documents through public records requests and published them on Wednesday. Historically, these assessments used “LGBTQ+” or “LGBTQIA+.” The sudden absence of the “T” is part of a broader project by Republicans to erase transgender people from public recognition.

One of the documents Klippenstein obtained is an 11-page Joint Threat Assessment coauthored by multiple New York law enforcement agencies. According to Klippenstein, it warns of potential attacks on Pride events across the country, including New York City, by ideologically motivated offenders. The report sketches out risks ranging from improvised explosives to intimidation campaigns. But throughout, it uses only “LGB+ community,” never acknowledging transgender people, even though trans individuals face the highest rates of hate-motivated violence, Klippenstein reports.

The second document, a two-page DHS memo dated May 16, 2025, was circulated to state and local law enforcement one day before the World Pride kickoff in Washington, D.C. That bulletin warns that “violent extremists motivated by a range of anti-LGB+ grievances probably view upcoming Pride events … as potential targets for attacks,” citing tactics like vehicle rammings, explosives, and suicide drones.

Related: 'Transgender' references erased from Stonewall National Monument website

The first page and most of the second outline risks and recommend mitigation steps such as crowd control, police sweeps, barricades, and awareness campaigns. The final quarter of page two is redacted, but what remains visible is striking: not once does the word “transgender” appear.

The omission comes as anti-trans violence grows. According to GLAAD’s ALERT Desk, between May 2024 and May 2025, there were 932 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents nationwide, averaging 2.5 a day. Over half, 52 percent, or 485 cases, specifically targeted transgender and gender-nonconforming people. The report documented 84 injuries and 10 deaths, eight of them people of color. Compared to the previous year, anti-trans incidents rose 14 percent.

Amid the increase in violence, earlier this year, the National Park Service altered the description of the Stonewall National Monument to remove “transgender” and replace “LGBTQ+” with “LGB.” The change sparked protests outside the Stonewall Inn, where demonstrators declared, “Stonewall is transgender history,” and invoked Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, trans women of color who were central to the 1969 uprising that defined the movement to achieve equal rights for LGBTQ+ people. Lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who represents New York, demanded that transgender references be restored.

The intelligence reports align with one of President Donald Trump’s earliest executive orders this term. The directive, signed on the first day of Trump’s second term, rescinded federal acknowledgment of transgender identities, declaring that the government would recognize only two sexes — male and female — based on “immutable biological” characteristics at birth. Agencies were instructed to strip references to gender identity from policies, forms, and records.

Related: Donald Trump’s government declares that transgender and nonbinary people don’t exist

Sex refers to biological traits, including chromosomes, hormones, and anatomy. Gender is a deeply held social and personal identity, which may or may not align with the sex assigned at birth. All major medical associations affirm the difference, with advocates noting that conflating the two erases transgender people’s lived reality and undermines both medical care and civil rights.

Following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in early September, Trump allies began labeling transgender suspects “nihilist violent extremists” — a baseless framing now being circulated by influential Republicans. The administration has erased LGBTQ+ people from other public-facing government websites and documents, including within the Department of Health and Human Services.