Trump’s new budget turns the FBI into the gender police

A new budget proposal from the Trump administration seeks to increase federal counterterrorism funding targeting what it describes as “domestic terrorism,” including a focus on gender “extremism.”

President Donald Trump submitted a fiscal year 2027 budget request to Congress earlier this month, seeking a $166 million increase for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterterrorism efforts. The proposal pairs that funding increase with language urging federal authorities to scrutinize ideological movements the administration casts as threats to national security.

The proposal claims that “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” constitute emerging national security concerns. It includes “domestic terrorists” who practice “extremism on migration, race and gender,” or who oppose “traditional American views on family, religion and morality.”

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Under the proposal, addressing those categories would become a stated priority for FBI counterterrorism spending.

The budget also calls for creating a new federal hub to address “political violence in America,” which it positions as focused in part on “leftist” ideology, according to the Washington Blade.

That center, referred to as the “NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center,” follows a directive issued by the Trump administration last year to prioritize investigations into perceived political threats from the left, as previously reported by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein.

Civil liberties advocates have warned that the approach risks conflating political dissent with national security threats. Several public interest groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have raised concerns that the policy could target Americans based on their beliefs.

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“NSPM-7 is a deliberate attempt to sow fear and intimidate and silence opposition to the president’s abuses,” Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, wrote in October 2025.

The proposal now moves to Congress, where lawmakers will negotiate spending levels ahead of the federal budget deadline of October 1.

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.