Donald Trump Wants a Safe Space
by LAURA KATE
President-elect Donald Trump’s “chief strategist” Steve Bannon, formerly of right-wing news website Breitbart, was in charge when the site published nearly 8,000 articles mocking the concept of safe spaces for minority groups, particularly within the U.S. education system.
Based on his association with Bannon, it’s safe to say that Trump doesn’t take safe spaces very seriously. Except to silence criticism of his coming administration, of course.
As a gay trans woman, I sometimes get treated … well, pretty badly. Sometimes people just use the wrong pronouns — an irritation, at worst. But some provocations are more serious. Say, someone kicking the door of a toilet stall because they don’t believe I belong there.
Look, I can deal. All the same, it’s comforting knowing there are places where I can relax. Where I know that — for a little while, at least — I won’t have to constantly engage with people who harbor deep disregard for, even opposition to, who I am.
In a perfect world, harassment would be rare. There’d be no need for safe spaces.
This is not a perfect world.
In this imperfect world, there are millions of people like our vice president-elect Mike Pence, who once apparently supported “conversion therapy” for gays. People who believe that my sexual orientation and gender identity are things that can they can “cure” with a little electrocution and mental reprogramming.
People for whom my life and identity are subject to debate.
What’s especially frustrating is that some people who share Pence’s ideology demand their own safe spaces while trying to deprive me of mine.
On Nov. 19, Pence attended a showing of the hip-hop political musical Hamilton. Some audience members booed the nationally-unpopular Indiana governor. After the show, the cast addressed Pence directly. “We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf all of us,” actor Brandon Victor Dixon said.
“We, sir — we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” Dixon added. “We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”
To his credit, Pence stayed and listened. “I nudged my kids and reminded them — that’s what freedom sounds like,” Pence said.
Pence’s boss Trump, on the other hand, flew into a rage on Twitter.
That’s rich — Trump demanding a “safe … place” when his own administration mocks that very idea of safe spaces for LGBT Americans and other minorities who are by far more vulnerable than white, straight, male Mike Pence will ever be.
If conservatives deserve safe spaces, then so do I. The difference is that my safe spaces help to protect me from serious harassment, even violence. Safe spaces of the sort Trump wants for his vice president would merely insulate bigots such as Pence from criticism of their hateful politics.
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