The LGBT community in the United States: what changes have taken place under Donald Trump’s mandate?

The LGBT community in the United States: what changes have taken place under Donald Trump’s mandate?

Illustrateur : Nato Tardieu 

15.05.2020

Written by Deborah Rouach

Translated by Caroline Feldner

During his presidential campaign in 2016, President-to-be Donald Trump maintained an ambiguous stance towards the LGBT+ community, which represents 13 million people^[1]People aged over 12 and over et identify as LGBTQ. Source: Conron Kerith J., Goldberg Shoshana K., “LGBT People in the US Not Protected by State Nondiscrimination Statutes”, April 2020, … Continue reading

in the United States.  Although he is against same-sex marriage and in favor of laws denying recognition to transgender people, he stated in a tweet on June 14^th, 2016: “Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary will bring in more and more people who will threaten your rights and beliefs” and he waved the LGBT+ flag in October 2016 at a meeting in Colorado. But since his inauguration on January 20, 2017, the LGBT+ community has quickly seen its rights curtailed and attacked by measures taken by the President and his administration.

President Donald Trump’s attack on LGBTQ rights

 Since 2017, the President and his administration have taken on measures granting more rights to sexual minorities which were implemented under the mandates of his predecessor, Barack Obama. Thanks to the Trump Accountability Project led by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation^[2]https://www.glaad.org/tap/donald-trump, all the anti-LGBT+ statements and actions of President Donald Trump and his administration have been recorded and catalogued, allowing us to see the systematic nature of the President’s political agenda attacks sexual minorities. The think tank Movement Advancement Project reported “more than 100 [anti-LGBT+] laws or bills in twenty-nine states in less than two years”^[3]Cassan Félicien, « Sale temps pour les LGBT+ aux États-Unis », 10 Octobre 2018, Slate, available at: … Continue reading».

Immediately after Donald Trump was sworn in, the White House and other government sites removed their LGBT+ rights page and lesbian and bisexual women’s health information, demonstrating the new government’s anti-LGBT+ stance.

In February 2017, the Ministries of Justice and Education repealed the federal circular allowing transgender people to use the toilets of their choice in public schools. States can now require that transgender people use toilets in schools that correspond to their marital status and not to the gender they identify with. On May 11^th, 2018, transgender prisoners were targeted by the Department of Justice, which suspended the provisions allowing them to use facilities corresponding to their gender identity and not their sex at birth, which had been introduced by Barack Obama to protect them from all forms of assault by fellow prisoners. In October 2018, the rights of transgender people were once again the subject of a presidential offensive following Donald Trump’s will to change the legal definition of “gender” issued by the Department of Health to an immutable and biological vision of gender that would be defined according to a person’s sexual organs at birth and not according to the gender identity with which he or she identifies.

In the same month, spouses of unmarried homosexual diplomats were denied visas to reside on U.S. territory. And in January 2019, the Supreme Court allowed Donald Trump’s administration to block the recruitment of transgender military personnel, which the President said would cause the U.S. military to become less effective, disruptive and medically costly, until the federal courts of appeal ruled definitively on the issue. This would amount to a return to the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy^[4]The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, « Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. United States policy », 2009, Britannica, available at: https://www.britannica.com/event/Dont-Ask-Dont-Tell in effect from 1994 to 2011, which required LGBT+ people not to speak openly about their sexual orientation or gender identity in order to enter or remain in the U.S. military.

All of these measures attest to a clear and assumed decline in government action under President Donald Trump’s mandate when it comes to the rights of LGBT+ people, which, in turn, reinforces hostile postures towards sexual minorities in American society.

Discrimination against LGBTQ people at the societal level

Therefore, the American government is sending a clear signal to its population, however without expressing it directly: discrimination against the LGBT+ community is tolerated. This was all that was needed in a country where religion already strongly fractures society on the issue of LGBT+ rights. Under the pretext of religious or moral grounds, LGBT+ people can be denied equal access to certain services such as health care, especially for medical treatment of transgender people^[5]Sanger-Katz Margot, “Trump Administration Strengthens ‘Conscience Rule’ for Health Care Workers”, 2 May 2019, New York Times, available at: … Continue reading, education, the housing or labor market, banks, etc. Inequalities in the daily lives of LGBT+ people have thus become more and more pronounced. It’s estimated that almost half of the community would not be protected against this kind of discrimination^[6]Conron Kerith J., Goldberg Shoshana K., “LGBT People in the US Not Protected by State Nondiscrimination Statutes”, avril 2020, Williams Institute, available at: … Continue reading.

In 2018, the report of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs^[7]Waters Emily, Pham Larissa, Convery Chelsea, “A crisis of hate. A report on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and Queer Hate Violence Homicides in 2017, 2018”, National Coalition of … Continue reading warned of a disturbing rise in the number of murders of LGBT+ people. Fifty-two people were killed in the United States in 2017, the highest number since 1977 and an increase of more than 86% compared to the year 2016.

In addition, it should be remembered that the US legal system does not protect people in the LGBT+ community from “conversion therapies”, pseudo-scientific treatments that are supposed to cure people of their sexual orientation and gender identity. These practices are allowed in all fifty states of the country for adults and prohibited in only eighteen states for minors.

What can we expect after the presidential elections of November 2020?

If President Donald Trump is re-elected, it is feared that the rights of LGBT+ people will be further violated through openly anti-LGBT+ government and federal measures. From a completely different perspective, the Democratic presidential candidate for 2020, Joe Biden, proposes measures^[8]https://joebiden.com/lgbtq/ that would uphold the laws and institutional measures put in place under Barack Obama’s presidency, when himself was Vice-President. He thus confirms his commitment to the defense of LGBT+ rights, equal access to public services and the military and their protection against all forms of violence and discrimination. Joe Biden also promises to “end the misuse of religious exemptions to permit anti-LGBT+ discrimination”^[9]Cyr Chantal, “Joe Biden publie son programme sur l’égalité des personnes LGBT”, Fugues, 12 March 2020, available at: … Continue reading, which is likely to trigger strong reactions within the conservative fringe of American society.

To cite this article : Déborah Rouach, “The LGBT community in the United States: what changes have taken place under Donald Trump’s mandate?”, 15.05.2020, Gender in Geopolitics Institute