(LifeSiteNews) – First Lady Melania Trump issued a statement this week celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings allowing government to protect women’s sports but in the process stressed that she simultaneously “fully support(s) the LGBTQIA+ community.”
On Tuesday, the nation’s highest court issued opinions in Little v. Hecox, which focused on an Idaho law that prohibits men from competing on women’s sports teams and whether that conflicted with the Equal Protection Clause; and West Virginia v. B.P.J., which concerned whether prohibitions violated Title IX. The Court’s three liberal justices joined in parts of the judgment while dissenting on other parts.
“The question is whether Title IX permits schools to maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females. The answer is yes,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority.
After the announcement, the First Lady shared a quote from her 2024 memoir, stating, “As many of you may know, I fully support the LGBTQIA+ community. But we must also ensure that our female athletes are protected and respected.” After a quote from the majority opinion, she added, “America, we can support the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community and also protect opportunities for female athletes. Respect everyone and keep girls’ sports fair. Both ideals are essential.”
“As many of you may know, I fully support the LGBTQIA+ community. But we must also ensure that our female athletes are protected and respected.” – MELANIA, #1 NYT Bestseller, (p. 156)
The U.S. Supreme Court has now legally confirmed this opinion:
“Under Title IX and the Equal…— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) June 30, 2026
The post emphasizes the mixed record of President Donald Trump and his family on LGBT issues, holding firm against the latest advances of transgender activists while ceding the ground the LGBT movement won before the former liberal celebrity businessman’s ascent to the presidency.
In 2012, as the owner of the Miss Universe beauty pageant, Trump repeatedly endorsed the inclusion of “transgender women,” i.e. men, in competition with actual women, in the name of what the Trump Organization called “modernized” rules at the time, eliciting praise from LGBT pressure group GLAAD.
While running for president in 2016, Trump criticized a North Carolina law banning male students from female restrooms and said anyone should be allowed to “use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate.” By the time he was in office, he flipped on the issue, rejecting Obama-era guidelines on the subject and announcing that the Department of Education would no longer indulge bathroom-related “discrimination” complaints.
A consistent supporter of same-sex “marriage,” Trump nominated a variety of pro-LGBT officials to government posts and judicial vacancies and continued an Obama-era executive order on “gender identity nondiscrimination” and U.S. support for international recognition of homosexual relations at the United Nations Human Rights Council. His campaign actively courted LGBT-identifying voters with rainbow merchandise. Over the years, he has also allowed his Mar-a-Lago residence to be used for same-sex “weddings” and Log Cabin Republican fundraisers.
On the other hand, Trump’s first term prioritized religious liberty and was generally aligned with social conservatives against the gender-fluidity movement, from banning gender-confused soldiers from the military to protecting women from having to share close quarters such as homeless shelters with men claiming to be transgendered. His White House also opposed the so-called “Equality Act” and maintained a biological definition of sex in its implementation of federal laws and regulations.
Trump lost re-election in 2020 but returned in 2024 thanks in large part to Democrats’ extremism on the subject. Post-election polling by the pro-Democrat firm Blueprint found that the statement “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” was the third-biggest reason for why overall voters chose not to vote for her, and the number one reason why swing voters rejected her and voted instead for Trump.
Since then, Trump has been an ally of social conservatives on gender issues. He has taken multiple executive actions to reverse the Biden administration’s transgender policies, including an order that ends all federal support for “transition” procedures on minors, rescinds or amends all of the Biden health bureaucracy’s past endorsements of underage “transitioning,” and calls for a review of the medical literature on the subject, enforcing all existing restrictions on underage “transitioning,” and taking regulatory action to “end” the practice to the greatest extent possible under current law.
Another order prohibits males who claim to be female from competing against actual women in sex-specific athletic programs at schools receiving government funding. A third disqualifies gender-confused individuals from military service and prohibits military health services from conducting “transition” treatments and procedures.