How Project 2025 will affect LGBTQ+ Americans, an interview with Spencer Macnaughton, founder of Uncloseted Media
From our discussion within the Queer Expats Worldwide Facebook Community. Listen to the podcast version here.
Should we stay or should we go now?
That’s the question that LGBTQ+ folks and their families have been asking over the last several months of this 2024 election cycle. If Trump wins, are we safe? And for a long time, it seems that the former president was set to win against President Joe Biden. In the time period just before and after Biden’s poor campaign performance, the wider public became increasingly aware of Project 2025, the conservative policy agenda spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, a historically anti-LGBTQ organization.
Even though new breath has been given to all minority folks since Kamala Harris and Tim Walz became the frontrunners in the election, this isn’t the time to take our eyes off of Project 2025 and what will happen if Trump wins and decide to enact this plan - the one that he distances himself from even though he and his Vice Presidential running mate JD Vance are very much entrenched in.
Even if they lose this election and President Kamala Harris is sworn in on January 20, 2025, there is still a playbook to enact and run on in future elections.
It is this playbook, and the context in which it lives, is worth exploring in more detail. Most importantly, just how is it that the Heritage Foundation was able to create such a project? Who are the people behind the Heritage Foundation, how anti-LGBTQ are they, and how does this anti-LGBTQ rhetoric continue to gain credibility and support in conservative circles?
That’s why we spoke with investigative journalist Spencer Macnaughton has dedicated his life and resources to launching Uncloseted Media this September, an organization aimed at bringing deep, investigative reporting to the political mechanisms behind the anti-LGBTQ movement in the country. The interview was available first inside our free community, Queer Expats Worldwide.
Make no mistake about it, Macnaughton has emphasized, there is a tangible, intentional ecosystem created to scapegoat and marginalize queer folks in a quest for power from the right. He acknowledged that there is a lot unknown about the possibilities of Project 2025, but also pointed to some of the harmful policies already in place in state legislatures.
WHAT IS PROJECT 2025 AND SHOULD QUEER FOLKS BE CONCERNED ?
As many of us know by now, Project 2025 is a 900-page document published in 2023 by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, which Macnaughton called “notoriously anti-LGBTQ”.
Trump has repeatedly claimed the manifesto has nothing to do with his platform, and such claims may have led to the recent departure of the head of the organization. But as CNN found, at least 140 people who worked for him helped create the playbook. The Washington Post reported Trump’s camp was getting increasingly angry that leaders of the project kept touting the project, and said in a statement it would welcome the project’s demise. But the Harris campaign is still cautioning voters that Project 2025 is deeply connected to Trump’s agenda.
What is undeniable is that many Project 2025 proposals are in line with the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric Trump’s allies have stoked and spread throughout the last decade.
PROJECT 2025 SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE
“That's maybe why Project 2025 isn't that surprising to me, because a lot of these things are already happening and supported by the Heritage Foundation, right?” Macnaughton said in an episode of the Adventure Calls podcast.
Macnaughton rattled off examples of the foundation advocating for more protection for people practicing conversion therapy, banning gay and lesbian people in the military and even overturning gay marriage.
“Over the last 50 years…they have been, you know, as anti-LGBTQ as the far right and America will allow it to be,” he said. More than 20 states have passed bans on gender-affirming care for youth and bans on trans participation in sports, according to data compiled by LGBTMAP.org. “It's just a little scarier, because it would be implemented nationally,” and how quickly and efficiently this could happen is also unknown.
PROJECT 2025 MIRRORS ANTI-TRANS RHETORIC TODAY
Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Plan is “a complete beast,” Macnaughton said. And while it has strings to pull that can unravel the fabric of almost all aspects of American life as we know it, Macnaughton cited some troubling transphobic language in Project 2025, including the following direct quotes:
“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection.”
“Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists.”
He pointed out that the trans community has been the target of political attacks, and local lawmakers have passed measures aimed at curbing the rights of trans folks in their community.
“There's a lot of folks who just want the power see it as a, you know, a wedge issue, part of the culture wars, let's just use it and we'll get more votes, there's that bucket, but then there's a huge bucket in this country still, that inherently believe the anti-trans rhetoric.”
And that power sits right at the top of our current political system. House Speaker Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson, who is the second in line of succession for the presidency, has a history of being staunchly opposed to gay rights,.“He’s written op-eds before that compare homosexuality to giving the right to marry your pet or a pedophile,” he said. “Language is really important.”
HOW SOON COULD PROJECT 2025 GO INTO EFFECT
If America elects Trump in November, he will retake the White House in January. He would be incentivized to take action on the anti-LGBTQ+ and specifically anti-trans parts of the proposed agenda quickly, suggests Macnaughton. “A lot of the things in Project 2025 that I read out, especially about the transgender community, are low-hanging fruit for a lot of Trump supporters,” Macnaughton said, explaining that mainstream America has not embraced trans rights as much as gay marriage. It would be easy to get these quick wins for his base to continue to support him.
In the Adventure Calls podcast episode, Macnaughton also warned that some of those policies against the trans community could be used as a litmus test for more extreme policies that further curtail the rights of the LGBTQ community down the road.
WHY MACNAUGHTON IS STAYING PUT
While Kamala Harris seems to be increasingly popular, there is a still a very real fear amongst the LGBTQ+ community that whether Trump wins or he doesn’t, there will be violence against many folks that look like her - or like queer folks. Project 2025 and the extreme implications it brings for the LGBTQ community have prompted some to wonder if living abroad could offer more protections.
In the Adventure Calls interview, Macnaughton explains that he is a queer expat himself from Toronto, Canada, who came to the U.S. about 10 years ago to study journalism.
“As an expat who covers the LGBTQ community, my gut says, I'm staying and I'm fighting,” he said when asked if he would consider leaving. “I’m staying and reporting on this.”
Macnaughton is launching Uncloseted Media just after Labor Day, and some of the first few topics to cover include the election, healthcare issues and education restrictions related to the LGBTQ community.
What does Macnaughton think about staying in the US in the face of this possible danger against LGBTQ+ folks? “If you’re in a place that’s stripping away your rights and there’s no major stake in what you do, get the hell out,” he said.
Members of the queer community in the U.S. and abroad have started raising similar questions.
Rainbow Relocation Strategies Founder, Jess Drucker, said she preaches about the adventure and benefits of living abroad but recognizes the fear around the election has pushed some people to consider the option who never would before.
In the interview with Macnaughton, Drucker said, “I think right now we are finding that queer folks are getting really nervous.”“I think we need a plan; a plan B so that we can take what we understand to be coming at us and be able to have a path to safety if we need one.
If you’re considering moving abroad, Rainbow Relocation Strategies can offer consulting and coaching services for queer folks, their families and allies looking to move, live and thrive abroad. If you’d like to create your own Exit Strategy, you might want to join our 90 Exit Strategy Cohort. You’ll work with Jess and a small group of fellow future expats for 90 days to not only plan. your move abroad, but actually take action toward your move. Bi-weekly live (and recorded) presentations, weekly tasks, a full plan and strategy to help you figure out where, when, and how to move abroad -and you won’t do it alone. You’ll have a community of fellow queer expats to lean on throughout the 90 days.
Visit 90 Day Exit Strategy cohort page for more.
You can help undo the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric: donate today to Uncloseted Media.
Launching September 3, 2025, the team at Uncloseted Media are hard at work developing dozens of stories. From election coverage about Project 2025 to investigations inside America’s homeschooling movement, stories at Uncloseted will be diverse in what they cover, but everything we publish will share a common mission: to provide you with objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, original journalism about America’s anti-LGBTQ ecosystem.
