The Trump Assault on LGBTQ

Staggering in Scope

Is Donald Trump homophobic? Is he transphobic?

Does it matter? I spend a lot of time promoting stories about LGBTQ issues. I see much more on Twitter and Facebook than I’d like. I see a lot of public sentiment — from LGBTQ people and from straight/cis people.

Lots of them insist that Donald Trump has nothing against LGBTQ people.

I’m surprised every day by how many people don’t understand the sheer scope of the Trump Administration’s rollback of LGBTQ rights in the United States. The width and depth of it is staggering.

Trump’s War on Trans is Over the Top —

Just yesterday, The New York Times reported that the Trump Administration is seeking to entirely end civil rights protection for transgender people on the federal level — by defining trans people out of legal existence.

I’m going to include a long list of Trump/Republican anti-LGBTQ attacks, but before I do, let me address all the people who like to talk about how Trump and other conservative leaders get along just fine with LGBTQ people. My response?

Trump’s personal homophobia or lack thereof is not important.

What’s important is that Trump and his people are rolling back our rights so quickly that they’re whipping up a cold, fascist wind that’s wrecking LGBTQ lives all over the US and the world.

This is what fascism looks like. This is what fascist leaders do. They identify groups of relatively powerless people whom they can hold up as dangers to the nation. That’s exactly what Trump is doing. He’s going after us to whip up his reactionary, alt-right, conservative Christian base.

He’s urging his people to the polls this November — the same ones who elected him.

Our ability as minorities to live as free and equal people in the United States is rapidly disappearing, even as violence committed against us is surging.

LGBTQ Rights Vanishing on the Federal Level —

What exactly has the Trump Administration been up to? They’re rolling back legal protections for LGBTQ people at an unprecedented pace by (just in part) …

• Saying it’s legal to fire workers for being transgender.
• Arguing in court that it’s legal to fire workers for being gay.
• Making transgender female prisoners live with male prisoners.
• Telling the Supreme Court that shopkeepers can turn away LGBTQ customers.
• Withdrawing Title IX protections for transgender students.
• Refusing to investigate anti-transgender discrimination complaints in public schools.
• Fighting to kick transgender people out of the military.
• Issuing a religious liberty policy to give government workers and contractors a loophole to ignore federal bans on discrimination against women and LGBTQ people.
• Declining to appoint an LGBTQ liaison for the White House.
• Protecting health care workers who don’t help transgender patients.
• Dropping its lawsuit against North Carolina’s anti-transgender law.
• Retracting plans to count LGBTQ people in the Census.
• No longer pressuring foreign governments not to imprison or otherwise persecute their citizens just for being LGBTQ.
• Not allowing employees of international NGOs and government agencies to bring their LGBTQ partners to the United States unless they’re legally married — even in cases where same-sex marriage is illegal for those employees.

Anti-LGBTQ Violence on the Upswing after Years of Steady Decline —

GLSEN, a leading LGBTQ advocacy organization, just announced findings from the 2017 National School Climate Survey. For the first time in a decade, victimization of LGBTQ youth is not decreasing at rates previously seen — and has, in fact, gotten worse for transgender and gender nonconforming youth.

Rates of violence against LGBTQ people on the whole in the US started to rise in 2016, reaching a years-high peak in 2017 and continuing to rise, with 2018 predicted to be the most dangerous year for LGBTQ people since sometime in the 1980s.

The Anti-Violence Project’s recent “Crisis of Hate” report cites an 86 percent increase in homicides of LGBTQ people in 2017, with a total of 52 reported incidents. Violent assaults short of murder also rose dramatically.

Beverly Tillery, executive director of the Anti-Violence Project, recently told the Huffington Post that she blames Donald Trump and his normalization of bigotry for the rise in violent attacks.

There are more instances of violence because the climate in the country has changed. Trump won the election by saying it was time to take back America for people feeling pushed out by LGBTQ people, immigrants and people of color. It was a tactical move to attack those communities. It worked, and there are more instances of violence because the climate in the country has changed. It has given an opening for people to feel like they can commit acts of hate-based violence without much repercussion.

Anti-LGBTQ Measures Surging on the State Level—

The Human Rights Campaign is currently tracking a surge of more than 100 anti-LGBTQ bills in 29 states. Proposed state measures run the gamut from excluding LGBTQ people from civil rights protection, to restricting public restrooms to trans people, to allowing child services agencies to exclude LGBTQ people as foster or adoptive parents.

Things are so bad that Massachusetts, the first state to legalize same-sex marriage and among the most LGBTQ-friendly, may be about to roll back legal protections for transgender people, with a popular referendum on the ballot this November.

So, does it matter if Donald Trump personally dislikes gay people or trans people? Does it matter if some small number of gay people or trans people count him as a friend?

Of course it doesn’t matter.

Trump is doing what dictators and would-be dictators do. He’s targeting minorities in order to appeal to fear and discontentment — and to prop himself up in power.

I should mention (because it matters a lot) that LGBTQ people are not the only minorities that Trump and his people are savaging. I’d urge all of you to read the work of people like Clay Rivers, Sam McKenzie Jr., Jerry Nelson, and Kay Bolden for a look at how Trump is using race, racism, and racist supporters to cement his power.

We must send him a message in November, people. We have to throw so many Republicans out of office and elect so many Democrats that he hears our howls of resistance loud and clear.

We have to knock him off his feet with a blue tsunami and tie his hands politically.

We have to let him know that his bid to turn the United States into a repressive, fascist state where minorities live in fear is not going to work.

Vote, people. Vote!

For more on yesterday’s frightening news about Trump erasing transgender rights on the federal level, please see the following two stories. The first, by National Center for Transgender Equality, is an important statement of fact and legal analysis. The second is a critical personal perspective and appeal for action by Gloria Bates.

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