The Continued Threat to LGTBQ+ Communities—and What Nonprofit Leaders Need to Know

This article was updated on June 26, 2025.

LGBTQ+ people—especially transgender youth—have been increasingly targeted by the Trump administration. Upon taking office for his second term, Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders that escalated attacks on trans communities, jeopardizing trans people’s ability to travel freely, be legally recognized, access federal civil rights protections, receive necessary healthcare, and benefit from federally funded programs and research intended to safeguard queer communities.

While there have been some legal victories—such as court injunctions temporarily blocking the administration’s most harmful policies—the mere threat of legal liability has had a chilling effect in the nonprofit sector, which has led to the termination of services and self-censorship, and hindered nonprofits’ ability to advocate for queer and trans communities.

The impact on nonprofits and the communities they serve has been devastating. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, for example, announced that it will close its Center for Transyouth Health and Development, “citing external pressure from the Trump administration.” The Trevor Project, which depends heavily on a federal grant tied to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, which the Trump administration declared will be terminated in July, announced staff layoffs in January, attributing the cuts to a “perfect storm” of rising anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, surging crisis calls, and declining donations.

“Nonprofits serving queer and trans communities are doing so much with too little.”

Meanwhile, dozens of LGBTQ+ nonprofits—including the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center—have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funding for refusing to comply with the administration’s transphobic policies, such as banning the use of terms like “transgender,” “queer,” and “gender identity.” These funding losses threaten the survival of these organizations that provide life-saving services and safe spaces for transgender people—at a time when such support is critically needed.

Meanwhile, nonprofit workers are facing heavier workloads, political targeting, and threats of violence, all of which are leading to burnout. As Jun Love Young, the founder of Beloved Arise—a multifaith community that celebrates and embraces queer youth and young adults through storytelling campaigns and mentorship programs—told NPQ, “Nonprofits serving queer and trans communities are doing so much with too little. Many are underfunded, underresourced, and overburdened, especially those led by queer and trans people themselves.”

To attempt to balance the scales of support, NPQ asked LGBTQ+ leaders and nonprofit workers what LGBTQ+ community members need most right now, how nonprofits can meet those needs, and what support nonprofits require from funders in this challenging moment.

What LGBTQ+ Communities Need to Thrive

Leaders across sectors—from faith and abolition to media—shared a unified message: In this political moment, community, solidarity, and care are essential to combat anti-LGBTQ+ policies and sentiment. They emphasized that queer and trans people deserve safety, visibility, and affirmation in the face of growing threats.

Ian L. Haddock, founder and executive director of The Normal Anomaly Initiative, an organization that supports Black LGBTQ+ communities through services, advocacy, and capacity building, told NPQ that structural issues that are exacerbated by Trump policies like homelessness, food insecurity, poverty, and HIV funding cuts threaten queer and trans lives, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and Latine people, and other people of color.

Haddock explained that while explicitly anti-transgender policies—such as restrictive ID and name change laws—have a real impact on the community, many people, especially Black trans women, need their basic needs met first.

“If you [ask] a Black trans woman, ‘What are you feeling right now?’ And they’re just like, ‘I just want to eat. I mean, yeah, I want my name changed, that’s important so I can have my documents. But if I can’t eat, I mean, I’m not worried about traveling anywhere, right?’ And so, it just really sets a tone of what we need to be doing and why we’re doing our work,” Haddock said.

“Fear can keep well-meaning organizations from acting with the boldness this moment requires.”

Carceral violence must also be addressed as a critical transgender rights issue. Trans and queer people are disproportionately criminalized due to overpolicing and the systemic conditions that force many into survival economies. Once incarcerated, they face extreme risks of sexual and systemic violence, including being deadnamed, misgendered through housing assignments, and denied access to gender-affirming care—harms that have only intensified under Trump’s policies.

Amy Malinowski, codirector of the Missouri office of the MacArthur Justice Center (MJC), quoted Angela Davis: “Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings.” Malinowski explained that “this is especially true for transgender people”—especially right now.

“Because of the current hostile political environment, it is no mystery that individual actors within the legal and carceral systems feel emboldened,” Susie Lake, a staff attorney at MJC, told NPQ. “Those of us who are allies on the outside have a duty to stand in solidarity with incarcerated trans and queer people in creative ways [and] community building is even more important now, as it will take coalitions of both incarcerated individuals and those of us not behind bars to continue to push for justice.”

Imara Jones, creator of TransLash Media, an independent news organization with a mission to “tell trans stories to save trans lives,” said to NPQ that to keep trans people alive in the face of systemic anti-trans oppression, “Trans people need these attacks to end. But just as important, trans people need to know the context of what’s happening, that they are not alone, and there will be people who support them in this moment.”

What Nonprofits Can Do to Support LGBTQ+ Communities

Nonprofits must play a crucial role not only in resisting the far-right’s overt political campaign to erase trans people from public life but also in challenging deeply entrenched structural violence. However, today’s climate of uncertainty and growing hostility has left many nonprofit organizations struggling to act in the best interests of the communities they serve.

“One of the biggest challenges [nonprofits are currently facing] is fear. Fear of political backlash, fear of alienating donors, fear of stepping into conversations that feel too complex or controversial,” Young told NPQ. “That fear can keep well-meaning organizations from acting with the boldness this moment requires.”

“If we want to build a world where everyone belongs, we must be willing to fund the people and movements that are already doing that work.”

In the face of this fear, it is essential to stay grounded in the core mission of supporting those most affected. As Malinowski emphasized, “Nonprofit and legal professionals should be sure not to lose sight of the humans at the center of political attacks, the importance of connection, and the power of visibility.”

For Haddock, the path forward begins with listening closely to the communities nonprofits serve and building deep, authentic relationships with them. “I think one of the things is creating spaces for community to talk to you and to really listen to their priorities,” he explained. “And what you will find is that their priorities often, if you’re talking to the right people, don’t intersect with your priorities.”

Through these listening sessions, Haddock came to understand that anti-LGBTQ+ attacks are also assaults on identity, which he described as “an attack on joy and hope.” Reflecting on how LGBTQ+ communities organized during the HIV epidemic in the 1980s and 90s, Haddock recalled how ACT UP activists “got out in the streets, it was to protect not just their bodies and their livelihood, but their joy and their hope.”

Haddock went on to stress that alongside the necessary policy and legal work, nonprofits must also embrace storytelling, love, community, visibility, and joy in order to sustain this work.

“Pride is not just the protest against the powers that be,” Haddock said, “but also an internal protest of ‘I am still going to love myself.’ I’m still going to be visible, still going to be in community, still going to create spaces for us to feel brave even as we cannot feel safe. I’ll still create this…as long as we have joy and hope.”

Lake also pointed out the need to sustain hope and joy as essential driving forces in this work: “While it is dark right now, the moral arc of the universe ultimately bends towards justice. It can be hard to keep that optimistic viewpoint at the center of this work, but [it] is necessary to be optimistic and find joy in this work, community building, and lifting one another up, as joy is an act of resistance.”

Together, these voices urge nonprofits to move beyond fear and cultivate deeper relationships with the people they serve—listening first, acting boldly, and prioritizing community care and joy over fear.

What Funders Should Do to Support Nonprofits and Communities

To address this need and counter the rise of anti-trans sentiment, funders have a crucial role to play—but nonprofit leaders say that many are currently falling short.

“Trans organizations across the country know what they need in order to respond to this moment. So now is not the time for funding partners to hold back,” Jones told NPQ. “Given the scale of the anti-trans attacks, alongside the reality of corporate pullback, means that the need for resources in communities large and small has shot through the roof.”

Lake agreed, stressing the importance of resourcing efforts led by impacted communities: “Funders interested in supporting this work should remain committed to funding programs and projects run or endorsed by impacted community members. While the current legal landscape for trans rights feels uncertain and intimidating, those of us in this work are ultimately advocating for basic human rights—it is important to keep that message at the center of our work.”

Despite this clarity from movement leaders, Jones pointed to troubling stagnation among funders.

“They should be surging resources like never before to trans communities. But it seems as if many funders are stuck, concerned with the threat of direct attacks from Washington on their institutions and the possibility of lawsuits from the Justice Department over noncompliance with executive orders. So, this means that many funders are spinning their wheel,” Jones explained. “The bottom line, though, is that resources need to flow now across the board because, without them, it’s uncertain what the country will look like in six months or a year.”

This disconnect between the urgency expressed by LGBTQ+ leaders and the hesitation of many funders underscores not just the need for more funding, but for a radical shift in how that funding is delivered.

“Funders can meet this moment by shifting from cautious charity to courageous investment. That means providing unrestricted, multiyear funding to organizations rooted in the communities they serve. It means backing work that is intersectional, healing-centered, and unapologetically affirming. And it means recognizing that support for queer and trans people, especially youth, is not a niche issue. It’s a justice issue,” Young explained.

“If we want to build a world where everyone belongs, we must be willing to fund the people and movements that are already doing that work,” Young added. “Boldly, beautifully, and with love at the center.”