On The Current Sauce’s Instagram story, followers were asked to submit their questions regarding Project 2025; here is all the information found.
What is Project 2025?
The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, popularly known as Project 2025, is a plan founded by The Heritage Foundation which is an organization that formulates and promotes public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense, according to the Project 2025 organizational website. The Advisory Board consists of over 100 conservative organizations that have come together to form this project.
The goal of the movement addresses and reforms the “failings” of big government and an undemocratic administrative state, according to the website. Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership is a book which is the product of more than 400 scholars and policy experts from across the conservative movement and around the country.
Who supports Project 2025?
According to AP News, former President Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, while Vice President Kamala Harris has been warning voters against the proposal.
In a Facebook post on July 5, Trump wrote, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
In the debate against Harris on Tuesday, Sept. 10, Trump claimed once again that he has nothing to do with the conservative agenda. “I haven’t read it,” he said. “I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
There is controversy behind the former president claiming this because many of his former high-ranking officials, who were once in his administration, are involved in Project 2025, according to an article by AP News. This raised suspension due to the similarities of Trump’s policies he has planned if he takes office and the policies recommended by Mandate for Leadership, but the project explained that it is ultimately up to the winner of the 2024 election to determine which policies are implemented.
According to an AP News video, Harris and her supporters have spoken up multiple times regarding the proposed policies of Project 2025. In Houston on July 25, Harris spoke to the American Federation of Teachers regarding the banning of books.
“Project 2025 is a plan to return America to a dark past. Donald Trump and his extreme allies want to take our nation back to failed, trickle-down economic policies, back to union busting, back to tax breaks for billionaires,” Harris stated in the video by AP News. “Just think about it, we want to ban assault weapons and they want to ban books.”
Should I be worried?
The answer to this is up to individual interpretation. However, here is some reporting that addresses common worries voters have raised.
According to an article by AP News, “If former President Donald Trump wins a second term in November, Russell Vought, his former White House budget chief, may get the opportunity to go on the offensive; he is expected to be appointed to a high-ranking post in a second Trump administration.”
The Heritage Foundation run by many of Trump’s former officials is essentially waiting for the former president to make his return so their new policies could be considered, according to another article written by AP News.
“With a nearly 1000-page ‘Project 2025’ handbook and an ‘army’ of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers,” the article explained.
Will I (a gay) still be able to openly love my partner and get married to him?
Under the Department of Health and Human Services section by Roger Severinoe in the Mandate for Leadership book, it addresses the rights of LGBTQIA+ individuals.
On Page 450 under Goal #1: Protecting Life, Conscience, and Bodily Integrity, it states, “Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on ‘LGBTQ+ equity,’ subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.”
In the Mandate for Leadership book under the Family Agenda, it also reaffirms how the nation has to have “more traditional family values.”
“The Secretary’s anti discrimination policy statements should never conflate sex with gender identity or sexual orientation,” it states on page 489. “Rather, the Secretary should proudly state that men and women are biological realities that are crucial to the advancement of life sciences and medical care and that married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”
While it is still unclear, policies regarding LGBTQIA+ individuals will be repealed and replaced to form what Project 2025 labels as more traditional family values in our nation and a healthier society that should consist of a “mother, father, and their children.”
How will Project 2025 impact the healthcare system for the LGBTQIA+ community?
The Department of Education section in the Mandate for Leadership book written by Lindsey M. Burke addresses the future of the healthcare system for the LGBTQIA+ community, primarily addressing gender nonconforming individuals.
“Facilitating social gender transition without parental consent increases the likelihood that children will seek hormone treatments, such as puberty blockers, which are experimental medical interventions,” states on page 333 regarding the future for the gender transitioning of children. “Research has not demonstrated positive effects and long term outcomes of these treatments, and the unintended side effects are still not fully understood.”
According to an article written by McAndrews Law Office, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, prohibits discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics in schools that receive federal funding. Page 343 of the book also addressed the Biden Administration’s proposed Title IX.
“For example, under the Biden Administration’s proposed Title IX regulations, schools could be required to assist a child with a social or medical gender transition without parental consent or to withhold information from parents about a child’s social transition (e.g., changing their names or pronouns),” the book states.
Under the Department of Health and Human Services section, Mandate for Leadership book addresses funding for cross-sex transitioning.
“Withdraw Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program guidance allowing funds to pay for cross-sex transition support,” states page 485. “HRSA should withdraw all guidance encouraging Ryan White service providers to provide controversial “gender transition” procedures or “gender-affirming care,” which cause irreversible physical and mental harm to those who receive them.”
Page 462 of the Mandate for Leadership book, addresses the elimination of Woke Policies created by the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
The book called out the NIH for focusing on issues of gender identity — referred to in the text as junk gender science. “Instead, it should fund studies into the short-term and long-term negative effects of cross-sex interventions, including ‘affirmation,’ puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries, and the likelihood of desistance if young people are given counseling that does not include medical or social interventions,” the book states.
Project 2025 will impact the healthcare of the LGBTQIA+ community by eliminating access to procedures and medications for gender-nonconforming individuals, requiring parental consent and knowledge if a child is considering transitioning and it is heard about in school.
The policies of Project 2025 that were founded by The Heritage Foundation, if chosen to implement after the next president takes office, will impact several national issues in the near future. For more information regarding Project 2025 and other issues that were not discussed in this article, read through the Mandate for Leadership book.
