Comprehensive Impacts of Trump’s Second Year: LGBT Community
This publication is meant to be a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the Trump administration. There are many things that happened during the campaign that are not included. For this series covering the second year, impacts from about January 20, 2018, to January 31, 2019, are included. An introduction to this year’s series is here.
There are sure to be things missing, but I have done my best to record these impacts. The impacts are compiled under 20 different categories, or articles:
1. Cabinet and Other Appointments;
3. Women & Families;
4. LBGT;
5. Judicial/Constitutional;
6. Ethics;
7. Targeting free press/free speech/Privacy;
8. Health & Safety;
9. Consumer Protections;
10. Education;
11. Transportation/Infrastructure/Housing;
12. Immigration;
13. Social Contract;
14. Business/Economy;
15. Budget;
16. General Governance;
17. Character;
18. Military/Defense/Police;
19. World; and
20. Some good news. Because there is always some good news.
Since this series takes a long time to write, I will publish each section as I complete it. This article is on Women and Families. You can read the complete series on the first year of the administration here.
LGBT Community
For a second year in a row, Trump refused to acknowledge Pride Month. He went on to appoint anti-LGBT activists to all levels of government. After being the first sitting president to speak at the annual “Values Voter Summit” last year, this year Pence became the first Vice-President to do so. The Summit is a conference hosted by the Christian group Family Research Council, which has been categorized as an anti-LGBT hate group by experts. Pence also omitted LGBT people entirely from his speech at the White House about World AIDS Day for the second year in a row.
· Vice-President Pence’s archaic anti-LGBT and anti-women views are well-known. But it was still shocking to see his wife campaigning for an evangelical candidate who has overtly extreme anti-LGBT views and has suggested that life was much better and much more moral when homosexuality was a criminal act.
· The head of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights, Roger Severino, has a long history of opposing civil rights protections, especially for minorities. His previous role was a director at the DeVos Center for Region and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, where he frequently spoke against regulations that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office upholds.
· In fact, reports show that the entire Department has been filled with leaders who previously worked in the anti-LGBT and anti-abortion movements. Reporter Dan Diamond noted, “There are a significant cohort of folks who work together as advocates in the anti-abortion, anti-LGBT movements before coming into government. And that’s unusual and notable.”
· Speaking of DeVos, the Education Secretary continued this year to discriminate against transgender students by deciding to not investigate any complaints filed by transgender students who had been banned from restrooms that match their gender identity.
· Serevino wasn’t the only appointee harming the LGBT community. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson suggested that trans people should not be allowed in homeless shelters because they might make other people uncomfortable. Carson also removed all information about resources designed to assist housing providers comply with nondiscrimination rules protecting LGBT people
· Trump appointed Family Research Council President Tony Perkins to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Perkins is a longtime opponent of LGBTQ rights.
· Attorney General Jeff Sessions changed the policy manuals for every US Attorney’s office in the country to require every office to have “religious liberty czar.” The new policy manual also requires US Attorneys to seek approval of a Trump-appointed Associate Attorney General before they can proceed with any case that involves someone claiming religious liberty as a reason for discriminating. As Alison Gill of the American Atheists stated, “These policy changes significantly undermine the rule of law and favor religious beliefs at the expense of nondiscrimination and equal protection.”
· While he was at it, Sessions also created a new “civil rights” division to guarantee religious zealots the freedom to discriminate against anyone based on their religious beliefs. This is especially concerning for the LGBT community and women seeking any kind of health care. Appointed to head the division was a dangerous anti-LGBT attorney, Eric Dreiband.
· The DOJ actually explicitly stated in a legal brief that “federal civil rights law does not ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.” The brief went on to state that it is lawful to discriminate against transgender employees based on their gender identity because the federal civil rights law banning sex discrimination in the workplace does not extend to transgender people.
· Sessions then created a “Religious Liberty Task Force” to ensure that all federal agencies take the broadest possible interpretation of religious liberty when enforcing laws. As one example, the IRS would now be prohibited from threatening the tax-exempt status of a religious organization that actively lobbies on behalf of a political candidate (which IS prohibited under the Johnson Amendment).
· The Supreme Court started enforcing that early, voting in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple and setting a horrible precedent for Trump-appointed Justices to set discriminatory laws in stone.
· Unsurprisingly, Trump confirmed that he would have no problem with bakers putting up signs in their windows saying “we don’t bake cakes for gay weddings.”
· The Supreme Court then sent a decision back to the lower court, effectively wiping away “an opinion that went against a florist who declined to make an arrangement for a same-sex couple’s marriage.”
· In conjunction with the White House, Republicans in Congress also introduced a bill to explicitly protect people and companies that object to same-sex marriage and those who have sex outside of marriage.
· The Supreme Court wasn’t the only place where harmful anti-LGBT policies were being upheld. A federal court in Florida ruled that a ban on conversion therapy was illegal since “all they provide is talk therapy” and is thus considered free speech protected under the First Amendment.
· Trump removed protections put in place by President Obama and created a policy to allow doctors, hospitals, and health insurance companies to deny coverage or treatment based on gender identity.
· Because of all of the reversal of President Obama’s protections, states abruptly cancelled transgender people’s insurance coverage for transition-related hormones and procedures.
· Trump also tried to narrow the definition of gender as a “biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth” in an attempt to roll back even further not only protections of transgender people, but even recognition at all under federal civil rights laws.
· To further the decline of basic recognition, Trump had all references to transgender people scrubbed from government websites, including the website of the Health Department and Civil Rights Office.
· Trump also ordered the Bureau of Prisons to use “biological sex” to determine how transgender prisoners are assigned housing and offered services, and inserted the word “necessary” in policies regarding medical care and hormone therapy. This will automatically house transgender women with men and will leave any decision on whether transgender people are allowed medical treatment to the discretion of officials that that prison. This order strips protections against rape and other abuse and discrimination that President Obama had implemented.
· They weren’t finished. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) introduced an amendment to the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, HHS, Education, and Defense in an attempt to keep the LGBT community from being allowed to foster or adopt children by allowing taxpayer-funded adoption agencies to deny anyone based on religious objection. The bill would “not only prevent states from taking action against agencies that decline to provide services based on their religious beliefs but also would direct the federal government to withhold 15 percent of federal funding from any state that refuses to allow discrimination to take place,” such as New Jersey, California, and Rhode Island that have laws preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. (Thankfully, that amendment was stripped from the final version of the bill.)
· On its tails, Ohio introduced a bill to allow parents to block access to care for their transgender children, essentially giving parents a “license to abuse.”
· But Ohio wasn’t done. State legislators introduced a bill that would force teachers to “out” their students to their parents, and would charge teachers with a felony if they attempt to share counseling or other resources with the student. The goal was to ensure that parents have the power to decide whether their transgender children can receive any kind of hormone therapy. (As of September 2019, the bill has been referred to committee.)
· Oklahoma followed suit, passing a bill to make it legal to ban gay and lesbian people from any child welfare organization, including adoption and foster care agencies.
· It wasn’t enough for the government to discriminate. The Trump administration pressured the international 4-H youth organization to rescind a policy that welcomed LGBT members. The 4-H director in Iowa, John-Paul Chaisson- Cárdenas, resisted the “request” and not only received death threats, but was fired as punishment.
· Trump issued an order to ban transgender troops who require surgery or significant medical treatment from serving in the military, and even asked this personally appointed Supreme Court to back him up, which they did. (Spoiler alert: that ban indeed went into effect in 2019.)
· He went on to order the Pentagon to deny people living with HIV from enlisting in the military, and categorized current soldiers with HIV “non-deployable.” The order goes on to force the Pentagon to discharge anyone who is unable to be deployed.
· Trump’s horrible actions come as no surprise from someone who referred to gender-confirmation surgery as “getting clipped.”
· Trump’s State Department also decided to no longer issue visas to the same-sex partners of foreign diplomats or staffers of international organizations unless they are formally married, which is no possible in many countries. In fact, in more than 70 countries, homosexuality is still punishable by law.
· In addition, transgender people have been unable to renew their passports in an effort to invalidate their identity.
· Trump’s primitive policies impact people on an international level, too. When negotiating a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada, he exempted the United States from provisions requiring LGBT rights protections in the deal.
· The Immigration article details the horrendous atrocities committed by the Trump administration. One thing to note here is that Trump was draining money from HIV treatment programs in order to fund child migrant detention.
· In addition, Trump shut down HIV cure research to appease anti-abortion zealots because the research uses fetal tissue.
The next article will be on Judicial/Constitutional impacts of this administration. Stay tuned!
