The question of President Donald Trump’s stance on LGBTQ rights is a peculiar one. In his 2016 Republican National Convention speech, he became the first Republican Presidential candidate to mention the LGBTQ community, saying he would “do everything in [his] power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of hateful foreign ideology.”
However, in the next breath, he welcomed current Vice President Mike Pence ]to the stage, a man who spent his congressional career arguing against marriage equality. Pence has even said marriage equality would cause “societal collapse,” and that “tolerance does not require that we permit our courts to redefine an institution upon which society depends.”
Of course, President Trump should be the one forming the opinions of his administration, but he has not kept his promises on the protection LGBTQ citizens.
On the issue of marriage equality, President Trump says, “it’s done … it’s settled.” However, marriage equality isn’t the end of the road on LGBTQ rights.
Though a Mississippi court ruling in August 2016 made same-sex adoption legal in all 50 states, there are still roadblocks for LGBTQ couples wanting to adopt or foster children. In many states, including Texas and Alabama, only one member of an LGBTQ couple can formally adopt a child, forcing the couple to go to court for the other members parental rights.
In Georgia, a divorced same-sex couple is going to court over parental rights to their child, who was conceived through a surrogate mother. Only one of the men is biologically related to the child, and in their initial divorce proceedings, the judge granted sole custody to the biological father.
In March, both Chicago and New Orleans saw an increase in the murders of transgender women. According to the New York City Anti-Violence Project, 10 transgender women were killed in the first two months of 2017.
On these and other LGBTQ issues, President Trump has remained silent. He says he’s “fine” with existing LGBTQ rights legislation, but seems unwilling to go further to help the community.
President Trump continues to enforce an Obama-era executive order protecting LGBTQ citizens against discrimination in the workplace, and in an interview with NBC in April 2016, Trump argued against the North Carolina “bathroom bill.”
Despite all these promises, in Feb. 2017, the Trump administration withdrew statements on “policy and guidance”on how to protect the rights of transgender children. In another blow to transgender rights, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would not hear the case of Gavin Grimm.
Grimm is a transgender high school student from Virginia who said the Title IX federal law allows him to use the restroom which corresponds with his gender identity. The Supreme Court was prompted by the Trump administration’s new interpretation of Title IX to deny the case. Similar issues are working through the lower courts in several other states, but it’s unclear whether or not the Supreme Court will take one of those cases in the future.
Additionally, while the U.S. census might seem a trivial issue for cisgender heterosexuals, it’s not so for the LGBTQ community. The 2020 census was supposed to include questions of sexual orientation and gender identity, but when the final draft was submitted to Congress, those questions were omitted. Currently, the census only offers a small picture of same-sex households, which makes it difficult for the U.S. government to ensure that legislation improving the lives of LGBTQ citizens gets passed.
If the census doesn’t reflect that LGBTQ citizens exist, how will lawmakers know they are there? The LGBTQ community isn’t shy about having their voices heard, often involving themselves in national protests and marches, but our President has expressed his disdain for such events. He claims protests are organized, and marchers are paid to be there, which essentially denies validity to their message.
It seems President Trump and his administration need to be reminded that the “T” in LGBTQ stands for transgender. If they’re going to continue to claim they will protect all LGBTQ citizens, as the White House “statements” page reads they need to put words into action, not only for the transgender community but for the LGBTQ community as a whole.
Abbie Shull is a 23-year-old mass communication junior from St.Louis, Missouri.
Editor’s note: This column previously misidentified Gavin Grimm as being from New Jersey, not Virginia.
