With the return of anti-transgender figures like Donald Trump to power, 2025 has been a turbulent year for transgender rights. The constant onslaught of stories has been heartbreaking and overwhelming. These are the top ten transgender news stories from 2025.
Trump’s Return to Power and the Implementation of Project 2025
After the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump was sworn into office on January 20th. Despite campaign claims denying any knowledge of Project 2025, Trump has managed to implement between 40% and 50% of the proposal, following the Heritage Foundation’s plan to dismantle freedom for all.
As soon as Trump returned to the Oval Office, he signed a slew of pre-written executive orders.
- Transgender people have been fully banned from serving in the United States armed forces. Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness states, “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.
- With the signing of Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports, transgender individuals are banned from participating in sex-segregated competitive sports. Alongside this order, the Trump administration released biased and unscientific research demonstrating sex-based advantages to support their claims by manipulating the data to cut off right before previous research established a lack of significant athletic differences between transgender and cisgender competitors.
- The Trump administration has pursued the official erasure of transgender identities within government records. While the Trump administration was required to reinstate removed websites by the Supreme Court, other removals, such as the Stonewall monument and documents only saved via the Internet Archive, have not been remedied.
- The ACLU’s lawsuit regarding transgender access to passports is still underway, but transgender people are completely barred from updating their passports to reflect their current gender identity for the first time in 30 years.
UK Supreme Court Ruling Redefines Legal Womanhood
The United Kingdom Supreme Court ruled in favor of For Women Scotland in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers in April, stating that the legal definition of womanhood was based on biological sex. The case centered around the Equality Act of 2010 and the guidance issued by the Scottish government to include gender transitions recognized under the Gender Recognition Act of 2004.
Transgender individuals in the UK still have broad protections under federal law, although the decision induced anxiety since it paves the way for other laws to exclude transgender individuals based on biological sex.For Women Scotland is a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) organization that was founded in 2018 to explicitly campaign against the Gender Recognition Act of 2004. FWS has spent seven years attacking transgender equality and celebrated its Supreme Court win.
The victory by FWS also presents moral questions regarding media. For years, people have defended JK Rowling and the Harry Potter franchise out of nostalgia. – Rowling’s individual reputation has crashed due to her vocal anti-transgender views published online. Fans of her series have attempted to separate the art from the artist after the release of Hogwarts Legacy and HBO’s new television show, scheduled to release in 2027. However, Rowling donated £70,000 to FWS’s crowdfunder for For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers, proving a direct connection between supporting Rowling’s works and her profits being used to attack transgender rights.
US Olympic and Paralympic Committees Ban Transgender Athletes
In July, the United States Olympic Committee and Paralympic Committee officially updated their rules to ban transgender athletes from competing in upcoming events, regardless of international standards.
The change requires all transgender individuals to compete in male divisions, regardless of scientific precedent. Additionally, the new protocol only applies to American competitors since the US Olympic and Paralympic Committees do not override international regulations already guiding how transgender athletes participate.
Assassination of Charlie Kirk and the Resulting Anti-Trans Panic
Anti-transgender speaker and professional grifter Charlie Kirk was publicly assassinated during a Utah Valley University rally. Immediately after speaking to an audience member’s question regarding transgender mass shooting conspiracies, a sniper round was fired from a nearby rooftop that quickly led to his unavoidable death.
Conservatives tried to make Kirk a martyr with mixed results. While newly widowed Erika Kirk has risen to fill Charlie’s shoes, most Americans have forgotten about Kirk’s assassination. Charlie was a divisive man devoid of empathy and advocated for the unrestricted gun access that made his death likely.
A minimal amount of attention is still focused on Tyler Robinson, the accused party, assumed to be Kirk’s killer. Initial rumors stated Robinson was transgender, aligning with mass panic and conspiracy theories that transgender individuals are inherently more dangerous and mentally volatile. Later evidence proved that Robinson is a straight cisgender male from a traditional, conservative family and was dating a transgender individual during the events, who cooperated in the arrest and compilation of evidence against Robinson.
Thailand Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
The Marriage Equality Act was passed by the Thai House of Representatives and Senate in January, establishing Thailand as the next Southeast Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage and recognize same-sex couples with equal rights to parenthood and adoption.
The Act was overwhelmingly supported, passing in the House 400 to 10 and 130 to 4 in the Senate. While public opinion supported the legalization of same-sex marriage in Thailand, the country did not previously recognize any form of same-sex union before the Act.
Other countries, like Vietnam, are expected to follow Thailand’s example in legalizing marriage equality due to growing support for LGBTQIA+ people in Southeast Asia.
Australian States Expand Conversion Therapy Bans
New South Wales and South Australia joined other Australian territories in banning conversion therapy. Previously, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Victoria, and Queensland had already banned conversion therapy as a criminal offense beginning in 2020.
With the additions of NSW and South Australia, only the states of Western Australia and Tasmania remain without bans on conversion therapy – which is expected to change soon since both states have already introduced legislation similar to the rest of the country.
While Australia does not have a nationwide ban on conversion therapy, its conversion therapy laws are remarkably different from American bans. US conversion therapy bans only apply to minors; there is no state where conversion therapy is banned against adults, and only the jurisdiction of Washington DC bans both minor and adult-based conversion therapy. All conversion therapy bans in Australia have included adults.
Record Number of Anti-Transgender Bills Passed in the United States
The Trans Legislation Tracker reports that 125 anti-transgender bills were passed across the United States in 2025 across 28 states. The majority of bills involve healthcare access, education, and the legal definition of gender.
1,020 anti-trans bills were introduced throughout the year, reaching a historic high compared to the 701 in 2024, 615 in 2023 and 174 in 2022. The only state not to introduce an anti-transgender bill this year was Vermont. Out of the 1,020 total bills, 382 failed to pass – but 513 are still actively being considered.
New Zealand Halts New Puberty Blocker Prescriptions for Minors
The High Court of New Zealand has temporarily halted all new prescriptions of puberty blockers for transgender minors, citing a “lack of high-quality evidence that demonstrates the benefits or risks” similar to the UK National Health Service restrictions against clinical trials.
The ban does not target other forms of transgender-related gender affirming care or discontinue existing prescriptions of puberty blockers like puberty blocker bans in the United States. However, the ban is still problematic since it puts transgender minors in a double-bind – without access to puberty blockers, there can’t be high-quality evidence.
Zohran Mamdani Elected Mayor of New York City
/header
Self-identified democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected as New York City’s newest mayor during the 2025 elections, one of several key wins during the off-year campaign. Mamdani tallied 1,114,184 votes, making up 50.78% of the popular vote to beat previous NYC mayor Andrew Cuomo.
Mamdani’s win signals a strong step towards a left Democratic Party for the working class. Lukewarm Democrats like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi have filled the stage for several years, leading to the rise of conservative populism. Additionally, Mamdani is a stern advocate for transgender rights despite moves by other Democrats to exclude transgender equality from the party platform.
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Kim Davis Case, Marriage Equality Stands
In an unforeseen sequence of events, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Kim Davis v. David Ermold et al. Davis and conservative allies were hoping the Supreme Court would oversee the case and overturn Obergefell v. Hodges and the Respect for Marriage Act to reverse marriage equality.
Kim Davis garnered national attention in 2015 as a Kentucky county clerk when she refused to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Davis intentionally and repeatedly denied marriage certificates to same-sex couples within Rowan County, landing her in jail for six days for contempt.
The case continued after 2015 when Davis refused to pay $360,000 in damages to the queer couple she had denied since her original gripe was resolved with Governor Matt Bevin’s executive order to remove county clerk names from marriage certificates. Davis’s legal team argued that the State of Kentucky should be required to pay the $360,000; Matt Bevin and the State of Kentucky argued that it was Davis’s responsibility since she intentionally refused to comply with the law and her responsibility as county clerk.
For now, marriage equality will stand firm as a protected right for all Americans – and Kim Davis is now required to pay the outstanding $360,000.