Less than six months into the Trump presidency, the man who vowed to protect LGBT people has appointed to his administration a slate of anti-LGBT, misogynistic, xenophobic people who have made speedy progress in undermining the rights and health of countless Americans. They have:
- Revoked Obama-era guidance protecting LGBT school kids from discrimination;
- Withdrawn litigation against North Carolina’s notorious anti-LGBT law which, contrary to misleading claims, was simply replaced by another discriminatory law;
- Passed legislation aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood;
- Appointed someone to oversee federal family planning dollars who thinks that contraception doesn’t work;
- Quietly rescinded safeguards for LGBT employees of federal contractors;
- Removed questions related to LGBT people from the National Survey of Older Americans and the 2020 Census;
- Signed a so-called “religious liberty” order paving the way for anti-LGBT, anti-woman discrimination by anyone claiming a religious or moral belief as justification; and
- Neither the President nor the Secretary of State has said a word about the Chechen government’s concentration camp-like incarceration, torture, and murder of gay men.
This cursory list of his attacks on our community is just the beginning. That’s why I’m heartened by the growing resistance movement throughout the country, including the more than 500 people who joined us in March for some strategic phone-banking to help defeat the first version of the heartless Obamacare “replacement” bill.