Who is May Mailman? White House strategist behind Trump’s anti-trans agenda

A Trump insider

Mailman was a legal adviser in the first Trump administration. Mailman’s areas of focus in the White House ran the gamut, from immigration to higher education to gender and DEI.

She rose up the ranks and later became a central figure in Trump’s second term. She worked closely with Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and an architect of Project 2025, Madison Pauly of Mother Jones reported.

Miller is “the ideas guy,” the magazine reported, quoting Mailman’s appearance on a conservative podcast in April of last year. Mailman is “the one who makes it happen.”

In Trump’s second term, “making it happen” has meant narrowing the government’s recognition of gender identity and casting aside trans identity as a symptom of “gender ideology.”

The day one executive order she authored prohibited the use of federal funding on issues surrounding gender identity. Among its provisions, the order denied gender identity as a category protected under Title IX and prohibited admission of trans people into housing shelters, prisons and “single-sex spaces” that align with their gender identities.

Despite her central role in the Trump administration, Mailman’s work has not been limited to the national stage, and her political influence has been felt well beyond Washington, D.C.

Pushing anti-trans policies

Mailman obtained a bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Kansas in her home state and later a law degree from Harvard Law School. Between Trump’s presidential terms, she was deputy solicitor general for the state of Ohio.

Mailman also is director of the Independent Women’s Law Center, the anti-trans legal wing for the conservative nonprofit Independent Women's Forum.

After Trump lost the 2020 election, Mailman shifted her focus to state policy, guiding the forum’s push for a “Women’s Bill of Rights” in states including West Virginia and Kansas.

These bills aimed to codify definitions of “man” and “woman” in state law, and restrict trans people from accessing spaces that align with their gender identity.

During a 2024 press conference in West Virginia, Mailman claimed codifying definitions of biological sex that excluded trans identity would help end discrimination against women.

Joined by anti-trans activist Riley Gaines and then-West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, Mailman said “elites” including judges and sports bodies “seemed not to know that women existed at all” and that they were ignoring “biological reality.”

Despite pushback from Democratic lawmakers, the West Virginia legislature passed a bill to this effect one year later.

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New gig, familiar priorities

While Mailman left her senior White House role last August to start a government affairs firm, CBS News reported that she would remain affiliated with the Trump administration as a “special government employee” finalizing certain projects.

Mailman’s new firm, MPL Strategies, focuses on policy and legal strategy for “businesses and industries dedicated to securing a bright future for America,” according to its website.

Meanwhile, Mailman has remained involved in policy discussions around higher education — namely around hiring and admissions policies at Harvard University, Mother Jones reported this month.

While Mailman’s new firm does not focus explicitly on issues of gender identity, she still holds her role with the Independent Women's Forum, which does.

In recent posts to social media, the organization has supported the elimination of gender studies programs in higher education, the exclusion of trans women from “single-sex spaces” by state governments, and even conservative economic policies like the elimination of personal income tax.

This article was written as part of the Future of Queer Media fellowship program at The Advocate, which is underwritten by a generous gift from Morrison Media Group. The program helps support the next generation of LGBTQ+ journalists.