As an LGBTQ immigrant from Mexico working with thousands of people a day across the nation, I have been warning them of the danger of a second Donald Trump nightmare term.
According to the ACLU, Trump started a four year assault to erase LGBTQ protections across America. One main tactic he deployed was to make life worse for transgender students and workers by making access to gender-affirming health care weaker.
Recently, Trump announced a plan to undo a new policy enacted by President Joe Biden that uses Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, to protect trans rights. Donald Trump said he would strip federal policies that stop discrimination on the basis of a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. He would then rewind the clock back to when our nation was under federal civil rights laws that failed to address anti-LGBTQ hatred.
A second Trump term would also allow him the power to use federal law to override vital state protections for transgender students. Trump declared on "day one" he would demolish the Biden White House expansion of Title IX that prohibits federally funded schools from stopping transgender students from using bathrooms, locker rooms, and pronouns match their own gender identities.
The American Medical Association calls transgender rights a human right on the basis of emerging scientific data. According to their 2016 policy forum report, "Gender identity, as with any aspect of human identity, develops over time. An infant cannot be said to experience a fully formed identity of any kind—that sort of self-awareness requires advanced cognitive development, including a nuanced concept of gender that develops over years. Similarly, we are skeptical of the claim that gender identity—one's perceived sense of belonging to a particular gender, independent of gender assigned at birth—is genetically determined. There is limited biological research supporting such a claim and no semblance of a scientific consensus on it."
Trump has also vowed to announce at least a dozen policies that harm transgender rights if elected, including a national ban on transgender student-athletes competing in accordance with their gender identity and a federal law that recognizes only two genders.
Over the past few years, conservatives have increasingly pushed anti-trans legislation. Currently, the NCAA is considering new rules for all sports, but aren't including trans athletes as part of the debate. Already 24 states have blocked transgender athletes from taking part in sports, without listening to hardly any input from trans people themselves.
LGBTQ Americans could easily face more discrimination with employment, housing, education, health care, and various federal government programs under a second Trump term.
Under Trump it would be harder for transgender people to serve in the military. His first term ban proved that he could easily implement another one again. President Biden reversed the ban for now under his watch. According to a report by the Palm Center that reviewed Department of Defense data, there were almost 9,000 active-duty transgender troops in 2019, before Trump kicked them out via the ban that started that April. Trump's Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis at the time adjusted the policy to limit it only to LGBTQ individuals with what the Trump administration labeled as gender dysphoria, which labeled a person as having a mental problem because their biological sex did not match their preferred gender identity.
Most importantly, thousands of transgender people in America would lose access to important medical care and the ability to exist in the country without daily fear. Using obscenity laws could criminalize people for identifying as gender non-conforming.
For a shady businessman turned president, Trump was successful in blocking basic LGBTQ job protections. This gave American employers the right to fire employees based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Voters must know the truth about Trump's record on LGBTQ rights come November. If he's elected, they will be much worse off than they are today.
Leo Murrieta is the director of Make the Road Action Nevada.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
