Donald Trump Downplays Transgender Issues: ‘Very Small Number of People’

President-elect Donald Trump said transgender issues only affect a “very small number of people.”

Trump was named TIME Magazine‘s 2024 Person of the Year on Thursday. In his interview with the magazine, he said “the bathroom issue” only pertains to a small amount of people and it’s tearing the country apart. He also advocated for people to go “along with” the Supreme Court’s rulings.

“I don’t want to get into the bathroom issue. Because it’s a very small number of people we’re talking about, and it’s ripped apart our country, so they’ll have to settle whatever the law finally agrees,” Trump said after being asked about whether “transgender people could use whatever bathroom they chose.”

In a study published by Statista in July, the organization found that around 7.6 percent of adults in the United States identified as a part of the LGBTQ+ community in 2023, which is more than double the numbers in 2012. The study found that as of 2021, around 97.4 percent of people assigned female at birth still identified as such.

2022 survey data from Gallup, the Williams Institute and Pew Research suggests that between .5 and 1.6 percent of adults in the United States identify as transgender or nonbinary.

However, YouGov showed that the public believes that as many as one in five people is transgender.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump ran an advertisement focusing on transgender rights, famously saying “Kamala is for They/Them” and that “Donald Trump is for Us.”

“Kamala even supports letting biological men compete against our girls in their sports,” the ad read. “Kamala is for they, them. President Trump is for you.”

Trump told TIME that “it’s true, Trump is for us.”

A spokesperson for Trump said that he has plans for Day 1 in office, which range from settling the Russian and Ukrainian war to removing protections for transgender students.

“I am a big believer in the Supreme Court, and I’m going to go by their rulings, and so far, I think their rulings have been rulings that people are going along with,” Trump said, “but we’re talking about a very small number of people, and we’re talking about it, and it gets massive coverage, and it’s not a lot of people.”

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal involving a challenge to a school’s plan for transgender students.

The “bathroom issue” has been prevalent in Congress recently, as Republican Representative Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, has filed a bill seeking to ban transgender women from using women’s bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol. Mace’s posts come ahead of Representative-elect Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender woman elected to Congress, joining the House in January.

“We support gay marriage, and voted for the Respect for Marriage Act twice. However, if you think protecting women is discrimination, you are the problem,” Mace posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. “We don’t care if you’re trans, if you have balls we don’t want you in the women’s bathroom.”

The House sergeant-at-arms would reportedly be responsible for enforcing the ban, as Mace said in a few of her posts. A copy of the bill shared by Axios shows that bathrooms would be divided along the lines of “biological sex.”

Trump said in his interview with TIME that he does agree with McBride, suggesting the lawmakers should be focused on more important issues.

“I do agree with that,” Trump said. “On that—absolutely. As I was saying, it’s a small number of people.”

Sam Jacobs, the editor in chief of TIME, announced on NBC that Trump was the 2024 Person of the Year. He said the President-elect was someone who “for better or for worse, had the most influence on the news in 2024.”

“This is someone who made an historic comeback, who reshaped the American presidency and who’s reordering American politics,” Jacobs said. “It’s hard to argue with the fact that the person who’s moving into the Oval Office is the most influential person in news.”

Jacobs said that “this year was an easier decision” for the recipient of the Person of the Year than in past years.

“This is an honor,” Trump said at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. “I have to say, TIME Magazine, getting this honor for the second time – I think I like it better this time actually.”