Trump said Democrats want ‘transgender for everyone’ if they win midterms

In early January 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump allegedly said the Democrats would force “transgender for everyone” if they won the midterms, according to a rumor circulating online. 

The claim spread on Reddit, Instagram, Facebook and news sites focused on LGBTQ+ issues. For example, LGBTQ Nation wrote a story with the headline, “Trump says ‘mean’ Dems will impeach him & force ‘transgender for everyone’ if they win midterms.” 

Trump Says “Mean” Dems Will Impeach Him & Force “Transgender for Everyone” if They Win Midterms
byu/Ananiujitha inpolitics

During a Jan. 6 House Republicans retreat, Trump did, indeed, say the words, “transgender for everyone” while talking about a possible Democratic win in the 2026 midterms. He has frequently used the same or similar phrasing to describe Democratic policies and attack trans rights, and has previously claimed that progressive policy involves forcing “transgender for everyone” or supposedly indoctrinating children to be trans. 

But in this most recent instance, Trump said Democrats “want transgender for everyone,” not that they would force it. His phrasing appeared to imply that this would be an option rather than a mandate.  

As such, we have rated this claim a mixture of truth and falsehood — with the caveat that Trump has previously made statements that match the general sentiment of the claim.  

The White House did not immediately respond to our question about what Trump meant when he said Democrats want “transgender for everyone.” 

In a video (archived) on the White House YouTube page, Trump made the following remarks during the retreat, starting at 1:20:11 (emphasis ours): 

You gotta win the midterms. Because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached. We don’t impeach them, you know why? Because they’re meaner than we are. We should have impeached Joe Biden for a hundred different things. They are mean and smart. But fortunately for you, they have horrible policy. They can be smart as can be, but when they want open borders, when they want, as I said, men in women’s sports, when they want “transgender for everyone.” “Bring your kids in, we’re going to change the sex of your child. Just send them our way.” In some cases, like in Minnesota, they don’t even tell the parents, is that right? And nobody believes it when I say that. I think we have six states. Nobody — am I correct? OK, Tom Emmer said yes. But it’s true — where the kid comes back. They keep the kid. They operate on the kid, they don’t even tell the parents. 

It is worth noting that gender-affirming surgeries are very rarely, if ever, performed on transgender youth. 

According to a tracker by GLAAD, a nonprofit LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, Trump said the words “transgender for everyone” or a variant of that phrase over 40 times in 2025. 

“There will be no more critical race theory or transgender for everybody forced onto our brave men and women in uniform or on anybody else for that matter in this country,” the president said on May 24, 2025, during a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (see 45:56). 

In another instance, during a virtual campaign event for a New Jersey gubernatorial candidate in October 2025, Trump claimed the state had seen a “mass exodus of jobs and businesses all throughout the state while they indoctrinate your children at a public school.” He continued: “It’s called transgender for all and we’ve ended that.” 

Snopes has previously examined allegations that Trump’s administration considers all passport applicants trans before proven otherwise and investigated the meaning behind Trump’s comments claiming the country spent $8 million on “making mice transgender.” 

Sources