The Trump administration has withheld $1.25 million in congressionally appropriated funds from 20 organizations focused on projects related to LGBTQ and other underrepresented groups in a move that may violate federal law, according to multiple sources.

The National Park Service in January publicly announced the grants, noting that Congress created the Underrepresented Communities Grant Program in 2014 and that it “has provided $8.25 million to State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, Certified Local Governments, and nonprofit organizations to expand the National Register of Historic Places through historic surveys and nominations.”

The 2025 grants included three for LGBTQ-related projects. 

But within days of that NPS announcement, President Trump took office and signed executive orders halting all federal grants for review by a newly created agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Its mission: to root out diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and purge what Trump has called “woke” programs from the federal government.

Among the funding now frozen is money for the National Park Service. Established more than a century ago by President Woodrow Wilson, the NPS was tasked with preserving the nation’s natural and cultural resources “for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.”

The Recognizing Historic Underrepresented Communities initiative was meant to provide long-overdue support for projects highlighting marginalized communities whose histories had often been ignored. Funding was approved for 20 projects across 17 states and D.C.

Officials from the three organizations focused on LGBTQ-related work confirmed to the Blade that they have not received a penny of their grants — or even heard from NPS about when, or if, the money will arrive. In Washington, D.C., the Preservation League was awarded $75,000 to document LGBTQ+ historic resources in the city. In Providence, R.I., the Preservation Society was slated for $74,692 to conduct an LGBTQ+ survey and prepare a National Register nomination. And in New York, the Fund for the City of New York, Inc., was awarded $32,000 to nominate the residence of Bayard Rustin — the iconic civil rights and LGBTQ activist — as a National Historic Landmark.

If these congressionally appropriated funds are not dispersed by Sept. 30 — the end of the fiscal year — the move would appear to violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. One expert on the issue told the Blade that the deadline has already passed because it takes time for the government to distribute funds.  

Rebecca Miller, executive director of the D.C. Preservation League, saw funds withheld for LGBTQ-related historical recognition — $75,000 that she called a “tremendous grant.”

“A number of years ago, around 2017, the DC Historic Preservation Office received a grant to do a historic context study, which basically documents the history of the gay movement in D.C.,” Miller told the Blade. “[The historic context study] lays out the groundwork for further identification of spaces that are significant under that particular historic context.”

Some of the landmarks mentioned in that $1.25 million grant included well-known institutions that have supported the D.C. LGBTQ community for decades.

“Specific designated landmarks in D.C. that came out of the context study [include] the Furies collective, the Kameny house, the Slowe-Burrill House, and Annie’s Steakhouse is also designated,” she added.

Those significant locations are integral to understanding LGBTQ history not only in the city but the nation as well, Miller said.

“You can’t tell the nation’s history without telling everyone’s history, and I think in Washington in particular, our grant was supported by Capital Pride and SMYAL, two of the foremost LGBTQ organizations in the city, and it would really be a disappointment to all of us if we can’t continue on with these types of projects.”

“I think D.C. is an inclusive environment, and our goal is to tell the full story of the history of the city of Washington, and you can’t do that without this particular group that’s been so important to its history,” Miller added.

Dr. Marisa Angell Brown, executive director of the Providence Preservation Society, told the Blade the organization received notice that it was chosen for a grant — and then nothing.

“We had a notification of an award, but there was no fund transfer,” Brown said. “With the NPS, that email just never came. And as we were emailing the contact people to ask for more information … it was just silence.”

Brown explained that the funding was going to be used to gain a better understanding of the robust queer history of Providence.

“Basically, what we were going to be able to do was hire a consulting historian to, for the very first time, produce a survey of sites that are associated with LGBTQ+ history in the broadest sense in the city of Providence.”

She added that by withholding the funding specifically for LGBTQ-related projects, the Trump administration is attempting to selectively choose the history it wants to be remembered and preserved.

“What preservation really is is a kind of decision making about whose history deserves space and resources, and so a lot of the history of preservation has been preserving sites that are associated mostly with white men,” Brown said. “I absolutely think that these kinds of moves are direct attempts to curtail civil rights. … Good history contributes to the expansion of civil rights, and that is what we were hoping to do with this project.”

Other groups also confirmed they had not received the funding, including the Diocese of Georgia and the City of Denton, Texas.

Ken Lustbader, co-founder of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, said it also has not heard anything from the National Park Service.

“I know that we were awarded on paper, but I don’t have a contract,” Lustbader told the Blade. “The fund doesn’t have a contract at this point.”

Walter Naegle, Bayard Rustin’s longtime partner, told the Blade he was not aware of the grant application and that his emails to the organization about the status of the grant have not been returned.

Robert L. Glicksman, a law professor at George Washington University, said without notifying Congress of a recommendation to change the grants — and a subsequent passage of legislation to reappropriate the funding — this might constitute a violation of the Constitution.

“The president has no inherent authority to refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress,” Glicksman said. “Congress has the control of the purse under Article I of the Constitution. Any attempt by the president to ignore congressional instructions to spend funds presents a separation of powers issue.”

He added that if the Trump administration is doing this without complying with the law, the implications are serious.

“If he is just doing this without complying with the procedures of the Impoundment Control Act, it seems to me it’s an exercise of authority that’s outside his powers in Article II of the Constitution, and it’s infringing on Congress’s Article I power of the purse.”

“If the president is unilaterally refusing to spend money that a statute requires the executive branch to use, that’s a separation of powers problem,” Glicksman said. “It’s the president usurping power that the Constitution delegates to the legislative branch and not the executive branch.”

He also pointed to the broader stakes of Trump’s move.

“What seems to be going on here is the president’s determination that he knows better about what federal money should be spent on than Congress does. He just doesn’t have the prerogative to make that determination.”

And on why these particular grants matter: “The fact that these properties are all supposed to be dedicated to historical acknowledgments of past improper treatment of minorities and underserved communities seems to me to at least arguably indicate this ideological cast to the decision to not spend these particular funds.”

The Blade reached out to the National Park Service for comment on the status of the grant funds. The agency responded with a short email: “Pending financial assistance obligations are under review for compliance with recent executive orders and memoranda.”

Trump’s second violation of Impoundment law?

The concept of checks and balances has been central to the United States federal government since the Constitution’s creation — born out of the founders’ determination to guard against a king, or an oligarchy, taking hold. But the Trump administration is chipping away at the institutions designed to uphold those checks, as the Blade uncovered, by withholding payments to agencies that support ideas it doesn’t like.

In Federalist No. 51, written by James Madison in 1788, he laid out the system clearly: the legislative branch creates laws, the executive executes them, and the judiciary interprets them. To prevent tyranny, the founders layered in limits on each branch’s powers, hoping to make it impossible for any one leader to impose their will unchecked.

Anyone who sat through civics class might recall one of Congress’s most important roles: the power of the purse. Raising money through taxes and deciding how it gets spent falls squarely on lawmakers — with occasional oversight from the Supreme Court when disputes arise.

That idea appeared again in Federalist No. 78, in which Alexander Hamilton described Congress as holding “the will,” the executive “force,” and the judiciary “merely judgment.” The “will,” Hamilton explained, meant not only making laws but financing them.

That balance was tested in the 20th century. President Richard Nixon, like Trump decades later, began impounding — or withholding — funds that had been explicitly allocated by Congress but clashed with his own views. In response, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, making it illegal for any president to block congressionally approved funding except under very narrow circumstances.

Trump ran into this law before. In 2019, he attempted to withhold congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine unless its government agreed to investigate his political rivals, most notably Hunter Biden, the son of then–Vice President Joe Biden. That decision triggered Trump’s first impeachment trial, which became less about the law and more about Republican loyalty to the president.

Fast forward to 2025 and Trump is at it again, this time targeting domestic programs.

Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association.