The slow unraveling of transgender rights in America did not happen overnight. It did not start with the Chloe Cole Act or even with Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” laws. It has been building for years, crafted through strategy, media manipulation, and fear.
That slow shift reached a new pitch when Donald Trump launched his 2024 reelection campaign. Since then, anti-trans legislation has surged. Public sentiment has hardened. And while Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Project 2025, the truth is that many of the architects behind it served in his administration.
Project 2025 is not just a political plan. It is a blueprint for reshaping government to restrict LGBTQ+ rights, centralize executive power, and dismantle civil protections. And it is already being implemented, piece by piece, through legislation like the Chloe Cole Act.
The Republican Playbook: Ban, Blame, and Bankrupt
In September, Senator Marsha Blackburn introduced the Chloe Cole Act with support from Republican colleagues. The bill would ban gender-affirming care for minors and create a new legal path for detransitioners to sue doctors, clinics, or hospitals decades after receiving care.
At first glance, it sounds compassionate. In reality, it is a weapon. It targets transgender people by targeting their doctors. It tells medical professionals, “If you treat trans patients, your career and livelihood may one day be destroyed.” It tells parents, “If you support your transgender child, you could be accused of harm.”
The Chloe Cole Act fits neatly within the larger Project 2025 strategy. It replaces evidence-based health care with ideology, reframes support as abuse, and uses law as punishment.
Trump may claim ignorance, but the people advancing these bills were part of his political orbit. Many of them wrote sections of Project 2025 themselves.
The DOJ’s Dangerous Alignment
Even more disturbing is the Department of Justice’s public support for extending the statute of limitations on detransitioner lawsuits. Under this plan, patients could sue providers decades after receiving care, effectively weaponizing regret against the entire field of gender-affirming medicine.
If that happens, health care providers could face lawsuits long after their retirement or even death. Insurance companies would raise rates or drop coverage entirely. Hospitals could stop offering gender-affirming care to avoid legal risk.
This would not be a direct ban on transgender health care. It would be a slow suffocation of it through fear and liability.
The Silence of the Media
Despite its sweeping implications, the Chloe Cole Act has barely registered in major media coverage. Most national networks have ignored it. When they do report, they treat it as a partisan “debate” instead of a direct attack on medical freedom and human rights.
That silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.
By failing to report these developments with accuracy and urgency, the media has handed control of the conversation to conservative outlets that frame anti-trans legislation as “protecting children.” Their coverage amplifies fear and distorts reality, while voices from the transgender community are pushed to the margins.
When misinformation dominates the headlines, public perception shifts. What begins as a fringe idea becomes mainstream. That is how erasure begins.
Democrats Retreat from the Fight
It would be easy to focus only on Republican cruelty. But part of this crisis is also about Democratic hesitation.
Journalist Ezra Klein has noted that many Democratic strategists are “pulling back” from transgender rights, afraid that the right has won the messaging war. Rather than defend their values, they are avoiding the issue entirely.
Representative Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, recently said that too many Democrats are letting fear shape their decisions instead of facts or empathy. “We are at a crossroads,” she warned. “We can either lead with courage or follow polling numbers into silence.”
Even California Governor Gavin Newsom, once celebrated as a progressive ally, recently said that trans women participating in women’s sports was “deeply unfair.” His words echoed conservative rhetoric and disappointed many who once saw him as a steadfast supporter.
These moments matter because they signal a cultural retreat. When Democrats and the media adopt the language of their opponents, the public begins to believe that transgender equality is negotiable.
Redefining “Sex” and the Legal Erasure of Identity
Hidden within the Chloe Cole Act is language redefining “sex” as “biological male or female, determined at birth.” On the surface it looks technical, but its impact could be enormous.
If that definition becomes federal law, transgender protections under Title IX, the Affordable Care Act, and workplace discrimination statutes could be stripped away. Insurance companies could deny gender-affirming care. Employers could legally discriminate. Schools could refuse to recognize students by their affirmed names or pronouns.
Project 2025 is built around this same strategy: redefine basic legal terms until equality no longer fits. Once that framework is in place, erasure becomes easy to justify.
The Real Human Impact
Behind every political headline are real people.
Every major medical association in the United States supports gender-affirming care as safe and essential when done under professional guidance. Studies consistently show that access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy reduces depression, anxiety, and suicide among transgender youth.
Denying this care has devastating consequences. I have spoken to parents who are terrified that supporting their children will make them targets for investigation. I have met doctors who have quietly stopped offering care after receiving threats or warnings from their hospitals.
This is not about protecting children. It is about controlling them. It is about removing the right to self-determination and replacing it with government-approved conformity.
Project 2025: The Blueprint Behind It All
Project 2025, written by conservative think tanks and former Trump officials, lays out an exhaustive plan to reshape the federal government. It calls for dismantling diversity programs, removing LGBTQ+ protections, and granting new powers to religious institutions in matters of policy and law.
Its authors describe this as a “moral restoration.” What it really seeks is political control over identity, sexuality, and personal freedom.
Trump tried to distance himself during the campaign, claiming he “knows nothing” about the project. But the fingerprints of his former staff are all over it. The Chloe Cole Act, the DOJ’s litigation proposals, and the flood of state-level anti-trans bills all mirror Project 2025’s recommendations.
These are not isolated actions. They are test runs for the plan’s national implementation.
The Cost of Silence
Democrats and mainstream media outlets have the platform and influence to challenge this agenda. But too many are choosing to stay quiet.
When rights are framed as politically inconvenient, they become expendable. When journalists label coordinated attacks as “culture wars,” they legitimize bigotry as political discourse.
This pattern is familiar. It is how marginalized groups are slowly stripped of rights while the public looks the other way.
The transgender community does not have the luxury of waiting for better timing. Every day of silence costs lives, access, and safety.
How We Push Back
Change will not come from polite requests or halfhearted statements. It requires sustained action and unshakable resolve.
- Demand media accountability. Major outlets must cover transgender issues with accuracy and urgency. When stories like the Chloe Cole Act are ignored, misinformation fills the gap.
- Hold Democrats to their promises. If a politician claims to support LGBTQ+ rights, they need to show it in public. Silence and neutrality are not support. They are betrayal.
- Amplify independent voices. Independent platforms like TransVitae exist to tell the truth mainstream outlets avoid. Support, share, and uplift trans-run journalism.
- Educate, don’t debate. Transgender health care is not experimental. It is established, evidence-based medicine. Teach others what the science says instead of fighting on moral terms defined by opponents.
- Support each other. We cannot depend on institutions to protect us. Our strength has always come from our community. Build networks of support, share resources, and care for one another.
The Bottom Line
When I started TransVitae, I wanted to create a space for truth-telling in a world of half-truths. I believed that if we shared our stories openly, people would listen.
But lately it feels like too many have stopped listening.
Republicans are waging open war on our existence. Democrats are hesitating. The media is silent. And every day, that silence grows louder.
Transgender people are not asking for special treatment. We are asking to live, to heal, and to be seen as human. The Chloe Cole Act, Project 2025, and the wave of anti-trans policies moving through statehouses are all connected. Together, they represent the most organized effort in modern history to erase us from public life.
Trump can deny his connection to Project 2025 all he wants, but his allies are already carrying it out. If America does not wake up soon, transgender rights will be the first of many freedoms to fall.
We have survived by being visible, loud, and relentlessly human. We cannot stop now.
The time for quiet diplomacy is over. The time for courage is here.
