Newsom accuses Trump of opposing LGBTQ and women rights: 'He wants to put America in reverse'

AUSTIN, TEXAS: California Governor Gavin Newsom unleashed a fresh broadside against President Donald Trump, posting on X that the commander-in-chief is determined to drag the country backward on civil rights, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, and women’s rights.

“Donald Trump wants to put America in reverse. Civil rights. Voting rights. LGBTQ rights. Women’s rights. We will lose this country if we don’t stand up to it,” Newsom wrote alongside a video clip.

Newsom's rhetoric against Trump

The governor made the comments days earlier at a South by Southwest event in Austin. Newsom told an audience that Trump and his administration were “putting America in reverse civil rights.”

“Voting rights, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights. They want to bring us back, truly. Maybe it’s not even a 1960s world. Sometimes I wonder if it’s an 1860s world,” he said, according to the Austin Chronicle. He tied it to everything from ICE raids and DEI rollbacks to tariffs and what he called voter suppression.

Newsom spewed similar rhetoric during a 2025 swing through South Carolina, where he barnstormed multiple cities ahead of the midterm elections.

“What we’re experiencing is America in reverse,” he declared in Camden. “They’re trying to bring us back to a pre-1960s world on voting rights — you know it well. Civil rights, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, and not just access to abortion, but also access to simple reproductive care, contraception…It’s a moment that few of us could have imagined.”

Trump administration's push to protect women's sports

While Newsom casts Trump as an enemy of women and LGBTQ Americans, the President’s record may suggest otherwise.

On February 5, 2025, Trump signed the 'Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports' executive order in the White House East Room. The order directs federal agencies to withhold funding from schools and universities that allow males to compete in women’s and girls’ categories, citing Title IX protections for biological females.

The NCAA updated its policy after the order, restricting women’s competition to athletes assigned female at birth. Multiple universities, including the University of Pennsylvania and Trinity University, revised their transgender-inclusion rules.

The Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against states still permitting males in girls’ high school sports. Meanwhile, the ED has opened investigations into districts in Colorado, California, and New York.

Newsom's past comments

Even Newsom himself once acknowledged the fairness argument at the heart of the debate. In a March 2025 episode of his podcast “This Is Gavin Newsom,” he sat down with late the conservative activist Charlie Kirk and agreed that transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports is “deeply unfair.”

“I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said. “I’m not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.” He added that he “revere[s] sports” and called the fairness concern “completely legit." 

That said, Newsom’s latest volley comes as he continues to hint at a possible 2028 presidential bid. At SXSW, he made any run contingent on Democrats retaking the House. “I do not believe we will have a fair and free election as we know it in 2028 if we don’t take back the House of Representatives," he warned.

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