As vice pres­i­dent in 2012, Joe Biden endeared him­self to many LGBTQ Amer­i­cans by endors­ing same-sex mar­riage even before his boss, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama.

Now, as pres­i­dent-elect, Biden is mak­ing sweep­ing promis­es to LGBTQ activists, propos­ing to car­ry out vir­tu­al­ly every major pro­pos­al on their wish lists. Among them: Lift­ing the Trump administration’s near-total ban on mil­i­tary ser­vice for trans­gen­der peo­ple, bar­ring fed­er­al con­trac­tors from anti-LGBTQ job dis­crim­i­na­tion, and cre­at­ing high-lev­el LGBTQ-rights posi­tions at the State Depart­ment, the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil and oth­er fed­er­al agencies.

In many cas­es the mea­sures would reverse exec­u­tive actions by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, whose admin­is­tra­tion took numer­ous steps to weak­en pro­tec­tions for trans­gen­der peo­ple and cre­ate more lee­way for dis­crim­i­na­tion against LGBTQ peo­ple, osten­si­bly based on reli­gious grounds.

In a pol­i­cy doc­u­ment, the Biden cam­paign said Trump and Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence “have giv­en hate against LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als safe har­bor and rolled back crit­i­cal protections.”

Beyond exec­u­tive actions he can take uni­lat­er­al­ly, Biden says his top leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ty for LGBTQ issues is the Equal­i­ty Act, passed by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last year but stalled in the Sen­ate. It would extend to all 50 states the com­pre­hen­sive anti-bias pro­tec­tions already afford­ed to LGBTQ peo­ple in 21 most­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic-gov­erned states, cov­er­ing such sec­tors as hous­ing, pub­lic accom­mo­da­tions and pub­lic services.

Biden says he wants the act to become law with­in 100 days of tak­ing office, but its future remains uncer­tain. Assum­ing the bill pass­es again in the House, it would need sup­port from sev­er­al Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate, even if the Democ­rats gain con­trol by win­ning two runoff races in Geor­gia. For now, Susan Collins of Maine is the only GOP co-spon­sor in the Senate.

Crit­ics, includ­ing promi­nent reli­gious con­ser­v­a­tives, say the bill rais­es reli­gious free­dom con­cerns and could require some faith-based orga­ni­za­tions to oper­ate against their beliefs.

The Equal­i­ty Act “is a dan­ger­ous game chang­er” in its poten­tial fed­er­al threat to reli­gious lib­er­ty, said the Rev. Albert Mohler, pres­i­dent of the South­ern Bap­tist The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Rep. Chris Stew­art, a Utah Repub­li­can, tried to strike a com­pro­mise last year that would have expand­ed LGBTQ rights nation­wide while allow­ing exemp­tions for reli­gious groups to act on beliefs that could exclude LGBTQ peo­ple. His pro­pos­al won sup­port from The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints and the Sev­enth-day Adven­tist Church but was panned by lib­er­al and civ­il rights groups.

“Anti-equal­i­ty forces are try­ing to use the frame­work of reli­gious lib­er­ty to strip away indi­vid­ual rights,” said Alphon­so David, pres­i­dent of the Human Rights Cam­paign, a nation­al LGBTQ-rights organization.

Among the actions that Biden pledges to take uni­lat­er­al­ly, scrap­ping Trump’s trans­gen­der mil­i­tary ban would be among the most notable.

Jen­nifer Levi, a Mass­a­chu­setts-based trans­gen­der-rights lawyer, said it’s clear Biden has the author­i­ty to do so after tak­ing office.

Nico­las Tal­bott, a trans­gen­der man whom Levi has rep­re­sent­ed in a law­suit seek­ing to over­turn the ban, called that “a huge relief.”

“I look for­ward to being allowed to re-enroll in ROTC so I can con­tin­ue to train, keep up my fit­ness to serve, and become the best Army offi­cer I can pos­si­bly be,” Tal­bott said via email.

Some of Biden’s oth­er promises:

• Appoint an array of LGBTQ peo­ple to fed­er­al gov­ern­ment posi­tions. There’s wide expec­ta­tion that Biden will nom­i­nate an LGBTQ per­son to a Cab­i­net post, with for­mer pres­i­den­tial con­tender Pete Buttigieg among the possibilities.
• Reverse Trump admin­is­tra­tion poli­cies carv­ing out reli­gious exemp­tions allow­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion against LGBTQ peo­ple by social ser­vice agen­cies, health care providers, adop­tion and fos­ter care agen­cies and oth­er entities.
• Rein­state Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion guid­ance direct­ing pub­lic schools to allow trans­gen­der stu­dents to access bath­rooms, lock­er rooms and sports teams in accor­dance with their gen­der iden­ti­ty. The Trump admin­is­tra­tion revoked this guidance.
• Allo­cate fed­er­al resources to help cur­tail vio­lence against trans­gen­der peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly trans­gen­der women of col­or. Rights groups say at least 38 trans­gen­der or gen­der-non­con­form­ing peo­ple have been killed in the U.S. this year.
• Sup­port leg­isla­tive efforts to ban so-called con­ver­sion ther­a­py for LGBTQ minors.
• Bol­ster fed­er­al efforts to col­lect com­pre­hen­sive data about LGBTQ peo­ple in the U.S. by adding ques­tions about sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty to nation­al surveys.
• Ensure that LGBTQ rights are a pri­or­i­ty for U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy and be pre­pared to use pres­sure tac­tics, includ­ing sanc­tions, against for­eign gov­ern­ments vio­lat­ing those rights.

What­ev­er hap­pens in Wash­ing­ton, some activists wor­ry that Repub­li­can-con­trolled state leg­is­la­tures may push anti-LGBTQ bills, such as cur­tail­ing the abil­i­ty of trans­gen­der youth to access cer­tain med­ical treat­ments or par­tic­i­pate in school sports. They are also con­cerned that an influx of con­ser­v­a­tive fed­er­al judges appoint­ed by Trump might lead to rul­ings allow­ing reli­gious exemptions.

Ear­li­er this month the Supreme Court — now with a sol­id con­ser­v­a­tive major­i­ty — heard argu­ments on whether a Catholic social ser­vices agency in Philadel­phia should be able to turn away same-sex cou­ples who want to be fos­ter par­ents, while still receiv­ing local gov­ern­ment funding.

Tim Schultz, a reli­gious free­dom advo­cate, out­lined two poten­tial paths for the debate over the Equal­i­ty Act: “ongo­ing leg­isla­tive grid­lock, reg­u­la­to­ry trench war­fare and judi­cial deci­sions, which will hap­pen inde­pen­dent­ly of what the pres­i­dent does,” or active engage­ment by Biden for a new strat­e­gy that can win bipar­ti­san sup­port in the Senate.

The first path would pro­vide only “tem­po­rary sat­is­fac­tion,” giv­en that reg­u­la­to­ry moves can be undone by future pres­i­dents, said Schultz, pres­i­dent of the non­prof­it 1st Amend­ment Partnership.

Nathan Dia­ment, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Ortho­dox Union Advo­ca­cy Cen­ter, cit­ed Biden’s cam­paign-trail appeals for uni­ty — and his com­mit­ment to faith out­reach — as pos­i­tive signs for more engage­ment on the issue next year.

“He and his team will be very well-posi­tioned to bro­ker com­pro­mise if they want to, to get this done,” said Dia­ment, who has advised both the Trump and Oba­ma administrations.