A conservative blueprint to reshape federal policy would eliminate LGBTQ+ protections and redefine marriage through biblical principles if implemented in 2025, according to a detailed review of the 992-page document backed by former Trump administration officials.
Project 2025, a federal policy agenda and blueprint for a conservative government administration, could turn the tide of LGBTQ+ rights if former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 election.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank founded in 1973, oversees Project 2025. According to a 2001-2009 archived records from the U.S. Department of State, The Heritage Foundation’s mission is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense.”
The Heritage Foundation’s 1980 “Mandate for Leadership,” a 1,093-page blueprint for conservative governance, significantly influenced the Reagan administration’s policies. Reagan distributed the document to his cabinet members during his first Cabinet meeting, according to the Heritage Foundation’s own historical records. The foundation’s influence extended through multiple conservative administrations, leading to its reputation as one of Washington’s most influential think tanks.
During the Trump administration, the Heritage Foundation’s influence reached new heights. The organization claims that Trump implemented 64% of its policy recommendations. Several key administration officials, including former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short and former Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, came from Heritage Foundation ranks.
The project’s initiative aims to restrict various civil rights, with explicit calls to eliminate abortion access, deport immigrants en masse, restrict trans rights and other conservative priorities. The Heritage Foundation plays a significant role in the far-right, conservative efforts targeting people’s civil liberties.
For example, Project 2025 calls to rename the Department of Health and Human Services “the Department of Life,” according to the document. Page 451 outlines the plans to restrict rights for LGBTQ families. The document defines families as a married mother, father and their children, who are “the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society.”
The document states that family policies and programs under President Joe Biden’s Health & Human Services Department are “fraught with agenda items focusing on ‘LGBTQ+ equity,’” adding that pro-LGBTQ policies “should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married nuclear families.” Project 2025 describes a “male-female dyad” as essential to human nature, and argues that every child has a right to a mother and father.
Rachel Bitecofer, a political scientist and founder of Strike PAC, told Uncloseted Media in September that Project 2025 is driven by the far-right’s desire to turn America back to the 1920s or earlier. Bitecofer is the author of “Hit Em’ Where It Hurts” and leads Strike PAC, which supports Democratic candidates.
“It’s quite clear the goal is a religious-based biblical argument of morality,” she told Uncloseted Media.
The ‘Biblical Marriage’ plan
According to the 922-page “Mandate for Leadership,” the plan calls for the promotion of traditional heterosexual marriage, opposing single parenthood and same-gender marriages, and cutting programs that support single mothers and their children. The document says these changes would “maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.”
Project 2025 states programs must affirm that children thrive best with mother and father, which Ms. Magazine called narrow and antiquated visions of parenting in September.
The document defines “biblically based marriage” as a Christian fundamentalist framework that casts men as breadwinners and leaders in the family, while positioning women as subordinate caregivers.
The plan also promotes marriage for single mothers to marry. Contrarily, to pressure single fathers to marry, Project 2025’s plan calls for the government to “prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.”
State Rep. James Talarico, D-Texas, says the U.S. is sleepwalking towards theocracy, warning urgency is needed. Talrico criticizes Project 2025 as both a political climate America is approaching and already experiencing.
“For those in blue states, Project 2025 is theoretical,” he said in a video posted on X yesterday during a speech. “But for those of us living in red states, Project 2025 is already here. I know what’s coming because I see it every day at the Texas Capitol.”
Florida, under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been one of several prime examples of the project’s flourishment on a state level. Earlier this year, a Florida book ban aimed at regulating sexual orientation and gender identity-related topics led to the removal of more than 1,000 books in one district. This is part of the project’s larger effort in education by banning books, encouraging censorship and jailing librarians.
Project 2025’s success hinges on the outcome of the 2024 election and Trump’s win, experts say.
Project 2025’s success is contingent on who wins the presidential election
According to Data for Progress, voters at large have heard mostly negative things about Project 2025 and worry about its policy proposals—especially ones that would reduce health care and economic benefits for low and middle-income Americans. The research shows voters favor candidates who support trans rights. Voters also think recent political ads have gotten out of hand.
The data reveals that 58% of voters say “the government should be less involved in regulating what transgender people are allowed to do, including the health care they can receive.”
More than four in 10 voters, including a plurality of independents, believe Trump supports Project 2025. Despite Trump denying involvement with Project 2025, many of his top former aides—including former Trump administration personnel chief Paul Dans and former special assistant Spencer Chretien—are closely affiliated.
The bigger picture
During a News Is Out’s live panel Project 2025, Allen Morris, policy director for the National LGBTQ Task Force in Washington, D.C., shared that the intention behind its initiatives must not get lost in discussions.
Many of the organization’s partners question why so much attention is paid into the fight against Project 2025 despite its pre-existing long history of anti-LGBTQ initiatives, Morris said. But “when you give someone an inch, they will take a mile.”
Morris stresses that risks can look like an overall decreased enforcement of protections. “If this comes to light, then the little bit of protection that we have now and everything that we’ve been fighting for the last two decades will be gone just like that,” he said.
Historically, federal protections have been slow for LGBTQ people. The Equality Act, a non-discrimination bill, has been in development since more than 50 years ago when it was first proposed in 1973 in New York.
Kevin Jennings, CEO of Lambda Legal, stresses the lack of federal laws that guarantee non-discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation and how he says that serves as an unstable ground for the threat and harm that Project 2025 can bring unto the community.
Jennings explains that relying on federal regulations is crucial without explicit protections. Project 2025 proposes repealing regulations making it “open season on the community,” he said. It also promotes far-right conservatives’ religious exemptions, allowing people to refuse to obey non-discrimination laws if they conflict with their religion.
“Religious employers are free to run their businesses according to their religious beliefs, general nondiscrimination laws notwithstanding, and support participation of religious employees and employers as federal contractors and in federal activities and programs,” the project notes on page 586.
The threat, according to Jennings, is no small matter.
“Believe them when they say they are going to make us second-class citizens,” he said.
