Featured Image Credit: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, LGBTQ
Callum Jones
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, LGBTQ
Comments made by Donald Trump on transgender bathroom rights in 2016 have resurfaced, revealing the president's past opposition on laws restricting trans people from using restrooms that coordinate with their gender identity.
Before he was elected president for the first time in November 2016, Trump was asked about a North Carolinian law that put measures in place that the then Republican candidate thought was unnecessary.
The law banned transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity in governmental buildings such as schools and universities.
Speaking during a Today town hall a decade ago, Trump said of the law: "You leave it the way it is. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble.
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"They’re paying a big price, and there's a lot of problems."
After returning to office for the second time in January 2025, Trump quickly signed an executive order that ended transgender people's ability to reflect their identity in official documentation.
The order made it so that there are only two 'immutable' genders, male and female.
"Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women," the order states.
The executive order adds: "This is wrong. Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male."
Caitlyn Jenner, a longtime supporter of Trump, recently revealed how she was forced to ask the president for help after the policy turned into a 'safety issue' for her.
Speaking on the Tomi Lahren is Fearless podcast, Jenner explained how a renewed passport stated that her sex was 'male', with the State Department refusing to change the documentation to 'female'.
Jenner stated on the podcast that she had attempted to raise this with Trump, but a letter she wrote apparently never got to the president.
"Unfortunately, he wasn’t there that weekend. The Secret Service guy said he could get it to him, put it on his desk and stuff," Jenner said.
“I haven't heard from him. He’s kind of busy right now."
Despite that Jenner is still a supporter of the current administration, adding: "My gender marker is not big on the issue, OK? So, I get that, and I’m not blaming him whatsoever. I love the guy, and I love what he’s doing.”