(Note: On this page, discussion of “the United States” without further qualification refers to actions taken by the United States federal government, not by any of its subordinate governments or its people.)
Timeline
1873, March 3. Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, signs the Post Office Consolidation Act of 1873 into law. The Act contains a rider which codifies the initial provisions of the series of anti-obscenity laws known as the Comstock Act.
1958, January 13. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in One, Inc. v Olesen. It finds that pro-homosexual writing is not per se obscene.
1964, July 2. Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States, signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.
1968, April 11. Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States, signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968 into law. Title I of the 1968 Act introduces the concept of hate crimes into United States federal law.
1972, June 23. Richard Nixon, President of the United States, signs the Education Amendments of 1972 into law.
1993, December 21. Les Aspin, US Secretary of Defense, issues Department of Defense Directive 1304.12, inaugurating the policy then known as “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” (now simply “don’t ask, don’t tell”).
1996, May 20. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in Romer v Evans. The case concerns 1992 Colorado Amendment 2, an amendment to the Constitution of the State of Colorado passed that year by ballot initiative, which would have prevented any city, town, or county in the state from taking any action whatsoever to recognise queer people as a protected class. The Supreme Court finds that Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and sets it aside.
1996, September 21. Bill Clinton, President of the United States, signs the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into law.
2003, March 1. Under statutory authority provided by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) commences operations.
2003, June 26. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in Lawrence v Texas. It finds that US state laws criminalising sodomy between consenting adults violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
2009, October 28. Barack Obama, President of the United States, signs the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed earlier that year, into law. The law expands the hate crime statute in Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 to cover crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
2011, September 20. After certification from the US President, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2011 takes full effect, ending “don’t ask, don’t tell”.
2013, June 26. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in United States v Windsor. The case concerns the Defense of Marriage Act § 3, which, among other things, prevents Edith Windsor, the appellee, from claiming the federal estate tax exemption for surviving spouses on the estate of her wife, Thea Spyer.
The Supreme Court finds that DOMA § 3 violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and sets it aside.
2015, June 26. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in Obergefell v Hodges. The case concerns the constitutionality of state bans on same-gender marriage.
The Supreme Court finds that such bans violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and sets them aside.
2017, January 20. Donald Trump is inaugurated as President of the United States for the first time.
2020, June 15. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
2020, June 25. The Supreme Court of the United States issues judgement in Bostock v Clayton County.
2025, January 20. Donald Trump is inaugurated as President of the United States for the second time.
2025, May 1. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) publishes a report, Treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria: Review of evidence and best practices (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2025). Analogous to the British Cass Review, the report is largely a tissue of obvious lies and malicious misinterpretations intended to delegitimise the provision of trans healthcare and the existence of trans people in public life.
No authors or reviewers are credited. Metadata analysis by Canadian legal academic Florence Ashley reveals the identity of at least one person involved in the creation of the file: Alex Byrne, a philosophy professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and veteran anti-trans activist (Byrne, 2023). The file’s metadata also contains the names John Koenig and Blake Sanchez, provisionally identified as two consultants with those names on the Health team at Guidehouse, a management consulting business which works with HHS (Paré, 2025).
References
Byrne, A. (2023, April 17). Philosophy’s no-go zone. Quillette (Quillette Pty Ltd); Archive Today. Retrieved 4 May 2025.
Paré, F.A. (2023, May 2). If you open the anti-trans HHS report’s appendix, you’ll see that it was compiled by Alex Byrne. The appendix purports … [Facebook post]. Facebook (Meta Platforms, Inc.); Archive Today.
US Department of Health and Human Services (2025, May 1). Treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria: Review of evidence and best practices. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
Metadata
- Version: 2 (4 May 2025).
- Created: 2 May 2025.