100 days of erasure: Connecting the dots of Trump’s relentless war on LGBTQ+ lives

There was a time, not long ago, when it felt as if the arc of history might finally be bending toward justice and a prevailing equality for the LGBTQ+ community. And in just 100 days, that arc of history has reverted to a frightening downward spiral.

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I was born when Lyndon Johnson was president, and because of that, I can remember the first 100 days of the presidencies starting with Ronald Reagan, I have a visualization of what Reagan through Biden did during their first 100 days.

What Donald Trump has done in his first 100 days has been mortifying in comparison, and if you connect the dots, what he has done against the LGBTQ+ community has been absolutely shattering. If his presidency is about a retribution tour, then I wonder what we ever did to him to make him hate us so much.

In the years leading up to 2024, the LGBTQ+ community had seen victories through various presidencies that once seemed impossible. Marriage equality was no longer just a dream. It was the law of the land. Protections against workplace discrimination were strengthened. Representation flourished, not only in politics but across culture, in boardrooms, classrooms, sports fields, and military ranks.

Queer youth, for the first time in generations, were beginning to see themselves reflected with dignity and pride.

Most especially, under the Biden administration, that progress quickened. Executive orders on day 1 reaffirmed LGBTQ+ protections across federal agencies. The White House hired out LGBTQ+ officials to senior roles, not as tokens but as leaders. Pete Buttigieg became the first out gay Cabinet member (Richard Grenell does not count!). And Admiral Rachel Levine became the highest-ranking transgender official in history after she was appointed as assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Respect for Marriage Act passed with bipartisan support, safeguarding the right to marry even against the looming threat of a hostile Supreme Court. Transgender Americans, so long targeted and silenced, saw policy moves to restore their right to serve openly in the military and access health care without fear of discrimination.

Pride flags were raised at embassies worldwide, and LGBTQ+ rights were treated not as fringe issues but as central to the American promise of freedom and equality.

I am not alone when I say that I at first never felt more seen and more emboldened than I did during the Clinton years. If you were around then, you know it was beyond belief that a president of the United States actually reached out to us.

Then Joe Biden started living in the White House and what he did makes Clinton’s actions look like child’s play. For the first time, Biden provided a window into what full belonging could look like.

That window is now shattering.

In just 100 days, Donald Trump has begun to make LGBTQ+ rights disappear, washing them away with the cold, mechanical efficiency of a man determined to erase anything he deems “weak,” “woke,” “queer,” “nonbinary” or inconvenient to a world dominated by white, middle-aged, straight men.

Trump’s first targets, as ever, were queer people. On his first day, he signed dozens of anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders, many seeking to cancel transgender Americans. Within days of his inauguration, he signed an executive order referring to gender-affirming care not with respect or understanding, but with the chilling word “mutilation.” No amount of official jargon lessened the impact of that order and that word. It was chilling.

The administration moved swiftly, reinstating and expanding bans on transgender people serving in the military, a cruelty that announced itself loudly, proudly, and without shame. Across the country, trans youth now live under a growing shadow, their lives increasingly imperiled by rhetoric that gives permission to lawmakers, parents, and strangers alike to treat them as threats rather than human beings.

It is easy to forget the ramifications of Trump’s hate. It gives license to more hate, bullying, violence, discrimination and even death.

The erasure of our rights does not stop there. It reaches into every corner where LGBTQ+ people once dared to believe they had a place. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs were stripped away. Pride celebrations were canceled, erased from calendars, made invisible even at iconic national institutions like the Kennedy Center.

Agencies once proud to fly the rainbow flag now scrub their lobbies clean of any hint that LGBTQ+ Americans ever belonged there at all.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, the destruction cuts even deeper. HIV and AIDS initiatives, especially those tailored for Black and Latinx gay men, for transgender women, for low-income LGBTQ+ people, programs that meant the difference between life and death, are being dismantled with shocking speed. The HHS Office of Infectious Diseases & HIV Policy shut down, as clinics close, outreach vanishes, and community grants evaporate.

The scaffolding that has supported the most vulnerable collapses into dust.

Internationally, the barbarism extends beyond American borders. Trump’s hollowing out of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the decimation of the once-lauded President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, threaten the lives of millions. LGBTQ+ people in Africa and around the globe, who already battle stigma and limited access to health care, now face the loss of the programs that have kept them alive for decades.

This is not simply a rollback of rights. It is an erasure, methodical and merciless. People are already dying, and they will die in droves, especially in the “shithole” countries Trump loathes.

As a gay man and a journalist, I know the growing danger is not theoretical. It is present in every glance over my shoulder, every news alert and press release that stacks up in my inbox, every derogatory comment posted under a story I’ve written, all the queer bullying videos our newsroom receives, and every whispered conversation about how quickly our safety is being stripped away.

Trump has not merely turned back the clock. He has painted a massive, blood-red target on our backs, a color he likely believes symbolizes strength, but in this case, only signals open season on anyone who dares to be anything other than white, straight, male or female.

The consequences are already unfolding. Hate crimes surge. Suicide attempts and ideation among queer teens spike as Trump pulls the lifesaving suicide hotline for queer youiths. Language once reserved for extremists creeps steadily into the mainstream. The rhetoric that was once shocking has become acceptable background noise.

This war against LGBTQ+ people is not metaphorical. It is mortal. Health programs that preserve lives are being systematically destroyed. Messages that once whispered "you belong" are being drowned out by a new, brutal refrain, and that is you are unwelcome, unworthy, expendable.

Every queer child growing up under this administration is absorbing the same terrible lesson. Their existence is a problem to be solved, not a life to be cherished. This is the way I used to feel when I was growing up. How, in God’s name, are we returning to those days?

It is staggering that so much destruction could happen in just 100 days. It is terrifying to imagine how much more could be taken away in the next hundred days or the thousand after that remaining in Trump’s revengeful and retribution-filled term.

There is no need to wonder what America looks like for LGBTQ+ people by the end of these four years of the Trump presidency. It has already taken shape, and that’s a country where hard-won rights vanish overnight, where dignity is mocked, and where survival is once again a daily, grinding question.

We were so close of a dream of full belonging realized, and now that feels like a receding mirage. Perhaps we should have known this was coming. We should have steeled ourselves, not taken anything for granted, and remained vigilant.

And yet here we are. I can’t say that we didn’t see this coming. All we can do is try to remain visible as Trump seeks to make us invisible.

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