GLAD Law has published a summary of the anti-LGBTQ executive orders. I highly recommend you visit their site for solid information grounded in facts and common sense. They also tell what’s to be done about them.
Below I list the framing GLAD uses for each Executive Order followed by the language the White House chose. I think that juxtaposition is important. We can control the narrative, using language that’s appropriate and clear.
Sex Discrimination Executive Order
DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Transgender Military Ban Executive Order
Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness
Restricting Health Care for Transgender Adolescents Executive Order
PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM CHEMICAL AND SURGICAL MUTILATION
Removing Protections for LGBTQ+ Youth Schools Executive Order
Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling
**I added a few order since the February 4, 2025 GLAD post. **
Protecting trans athletes
Prohibiting transgender girls from participating in school sports teams
Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports
Building a christo-fascist regime in America
Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias
Other Things
State Department Travel Safety Website Changes “LGBTQI+ Travelers” to “LGB Travelers”
Things you should know about Executive Orders (thanks to GLAD Law)
An EO is a directive from the President, usually issued to guide federal agencies in their work.
EOs cannot change federal law, like Title VII and Title IX, which provide protections to LGBTQ+ people.
EOs can’t change our constitution and the protections we have as LGBTQ+ people under it. They cannot change the role of our courts in interpreting laws and their constitutionality.
Further, state laws still exist and, in many areas, they can address some key concerns we have heard from community members. Visit our LGBTQ+ Protections page for information we have compiled in response to actions at the federal level.
That doesn’t mean EOs cannot cause harm, chaos and confusion, as we saw last week with an order that froze federal funding.
Implementing EOs can take time and if they’re unconstitutional, they’ll be challenged in court, as we have seen with an EO purporting to end birthright citizenship.
Almost every site has a summary of Executive Orders. Familiarize yourself with that information.
Where to find ongoing information
To be honest, I’m unsure if this is helpful, I’ve struggled for weeks trying to figure out how to be helpful, how to find some sense in all of this. Granted, I’ve had pneumonia since the day before the Inauguration so the lack of oxygen didn’t help my critical thinking skills. But, God, I kept beating myself up – how could I, a 20 year blogger, with LGBTQ awards and insight and context be FAILING now of all times?
How is it mid-February and all of my posts are about me and my MH and trauma and healing? Or kicking my focus over to sharing on social media? What is wrong with me? Why have I been so stuck?
What got me unstuck, sort of, was a suggestion by a candidate that school board candidates should ‘tone down the gay’ (my paraphrase) in order to win their elections and save our kids. I flashed back to my early days of blogging 2005-2007 when we had no publicly out elected officials, but several privately out elected officials. We can’t go back. Nothing good will come from hiding.
Never agree to tone down the gay unless it is for your immediate physical safety. Never believe that is valued tacit.
Never tone down the gay.
I’m unsure if this is helpful, but this is the framework that came to me as I poured through the sites that are on top of this. This is what made sense to me – the names of the orders contrasted with how our community can frame the narrative.
We can control how we respond to this, how we protect each other. We can reshape frameworks to give us something to cling to when it feels just so awful. We have to allow ourselves to fall apart and also keep it together, something the LGBTQ+ community has done forever really.
I still find hope and comfort on social media. Maybe you’ll find a little of that here. Maybe we can find a way together to move forward without leaving anyone behind. Maybe my anger can meld with your anger to sustain us.
Read those executive orders so you know what’s become of our nation. Follow what happens behind the distraction tactics. Resist however you can. Do not succumb. This may be who our nation is, but it is not who we are as individuals, as a community, as comrades and allies.
I hear the people sing. I will fight one day more.
