Red, blue and rainbow: LGBT issues and the 2016 election

As the eve of the election arrives, Americans across the nation weigh several issues before they vote. For this election, dozens of laws affecting LGBT people will be among what’s at stake. Photo by Jana Sayson.

When voters hit the polls on Tuesday, dozens of laws affecting LGBT people will be on the nation’s ballots, prompting uncertainty in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

“There has been so many strides, so many positive accomplishments in the area of civil rights, especially regarding LGBT individuals over the last five or six years,” said Jeromy Manke, president of Our Center in Reno. “It is so important to us that those things don’t get wiped away.”

Among those strides is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which has been extended to prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in some states. In 2015, the outcome of Obergefell vs. Hodges made it legal for same-sex couples to be married in all 50 states.

Sherrie Scaffidi has voted since 1972. “I always have, even if I will chuck ‘em — which I’m not sure I’m going to do yet,” she said.

“I think if Hillary wins, it would definitely help,” Sherrie Scaffidi, a Reno voter, said. “If Trump wins, I think it will definitely hurt. But you don’t know … I’ve voted for the presidential election since 1972, and I remember people saying one thing and turning around and doing something apparently different, so you never can tell.”

Both major party candidates in the election have expressed their support for many pro-LGBT policies. According to the NBC News Weekly Election Tracking Poll taken in September, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has majority support from registered LGBT voters. Seventy-two percent support her over the 20 percent for Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Despite her reticence to support LGBT issues earlier in her career, Clinton has more recently appealed to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters. From her 70-second TV spot highlighting her support to numerous endorsements of pro-LGBT policies listed in her LGBT “fact sheet,” Clinton earned the approval of many gay rights advocates.

On the other hand, Trump announced his support for the LGBT community at the Republican National Convention in the wake of July’s PULSE nightclub shooting. He is the first GOP nominee to do so saying that, “As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect LGBTQ citizens.”

On transgender issues, both Clinton and Trump showed disapproval of North Carolina’s HB-2 law that prohibited transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their chosen gender.

Trump had said on NBC’s Today that North Carolina had made a mistake and should “Leave it the way it is.”

Additionally, Clinton had supported the Obama administration’s directive issued in May to allow transgender students to use whichever bathrooms and locker rooms that match their chosen gender identity.

Despite Trump’s support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, voter Sherrie Scaffidi doubts his words will translate into action.

“There’s a lot more conservative LGBT people than you would realize, so I think he’s pandering to those of us by saying those things to try to get the votes,” Scaffidi said. “But I don’t think he’ll follow through with what he says.”

Scaffidi believes that the Republican platform is “definitely against LGBT people. And platform wise … I don’t think [Trump] would go against the party platform.”

Trump said on an MSNBC interview that though he’s “evolving” he is still “for traditional marriage … between a man and a woman.” This reflects the GOP platform that defines marriage as such. Because of this, in an NPR interview by Robert Siegel, Gregory T. Angelo of the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay Republican group, withheld endorsement from Trump.

As a transgender individual, Scaffidi is concerned about her rights as part of the transgender community.

“If Trump wins, they’re gonna try to take a lot of that away from us,” she said. “That scares me because we’ve made an awful lot of headway over the past eight years, and I’m afraid we’re gonna lose some of that if a Republican gets into the office as president.”

Despite the clear divide between the two candidates’ views on LGBT issues, Jeromy Manke of Our Center believes that no matter the outcome, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights movement will still have a lot of work to do.

“It always comes up as ‘we got marriage equality, so what’s next?’” Manke said. “I think there are definitely issues that we still have to fight for and work for no matter who is elected.”

He said things like transgender rights issues are “key things that I don’t think it matters whether you have a Democrat or Republican or any member of another smaller party [as president]. It’s going to be something we’re still gonna have to fight, still try to push through.”

No matter who will be in the Oval Office, Manke said, “It matters on the ability of Congress to also work with the president in order to get stuff passed. … Our overall wish is that it’ll be a collaborative or cooperative government throughout each branch so that progress can still be made.”