Day 68–70 Trump Targets the LGBTQ+ Community

The LGBTQ+ community has had a rough week under the Trump administration. Supposed champion of gay rights Donald Trump hasn’t exactly been a friend to the community thus far, which isn’t especially surprising (unless you’re a member of the #GaysforTrump, or Caitlyn Jenner, who probably had a rude awakening this week).

It began with an effort by LGBT groups that proposed a census category that would describe the gender identity and sexual orientation of Americans in the 2020 census. This would have given LGBTQ groups and legislators concrete data to determine how and where to allocate their funding and improve policies related to these minorities. It would also give the American people a better idea of how large the LGBTQ community is.

But in a move dubbed by GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis as a “systematic effort on behalf of the Trump administration to erase LGBT people,” the census omitted the categories, further leaving queer-identifying Americans in the dark regarding the size of their community.

Furthermore, Trump revoked Obama-era workplace protections for LGBT people, once again making the community susceptible to employment discrimination for hiring and firing.

Transgender Americans are especially hard-hit by this executive order, as trans people are twice as likely as the average American to be unemployed.

This is not the first time Trump’s administration has clashed with members of the non-heteronormative community. In February, the Departments of Justice and Education rescinded Obama’s guidelines on transgender students in schools, and “Trumpcare” likely would not have had the same insurance policies for trans people as the revolutionary services provided in Obamacare.

Trump and VP Mike Pence have never exactly been friends of the gay community, but it seems as if we are moving backwards on many LGBT issues. As with many of Trump’s actions, it’s hard to tell if these moves will hold up in the long term, but for now, the LGBT community has been deemed unimportant by the President.