The Ways Trump Broke His Promises to the Gay Community

 Some Gay republican handed Trump the Rainbow Colors and he lifted the flag up. He said on is speech  "I will protect the our LGBTQ (He even mentioned the Q) 

 

Last summer on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump stood on a stage surrounded by American flags and spoke about the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack in Florida that claimed 49 lives. He promised to defend LGBTQ Americans. “As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology,” Trump said.

Come January, the Trump administration reaffirmed this commitment. “President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community,” the White House statement said. “President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election.” 

Yet so far his administration has taken sweeping steps to revoke legal protections for LGBTQ Americans. Pride month 2017 was marked by protests against Trump’s policies. The Daily Beast reported that thousands of queer Americans marched on Washington on June 11, many of them holding signs with slogans like “Trump Dooms Nation” and “I could be fired tomorrow.”

The Trump administration has rolled back several layers of workplace protection LGBTQ people used to have. For starters, Trump issued an executive order in March that repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order, made by former president Barack Obama in 2014. It required federal contractors to provide documented proof of compliance with federal laws, including prohibitions against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In January, the White House had specifically promised not to revoke this order. However, this was only one of many clear-cut promises Trump broke since he took office, including a guarantee that he would release his tax returns once he was no longer being audited. 

Yet another Obama-era protection the Trump administration nullified made LGBTQ youth more vulnerable at school. According to a 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 34% of LGBTQ students said they were bullied at school, and LGBTQ students have a much higher propensity for suicidal ideation and skipping school, often for safety reasons, compared to their straight peers. Despite the precarious situation LGBTQ youth still find themselves in, the Trump administration revoked federal guidelines that gave transgender students the right to use public school bathrooms that matched their gender identities in February.

Several members of the Trump administration, including attorney general Jeff Sessions, Education secretary Betsy DeVos, and press secretary Sean Spicer, referred to the move as defending “state’s rights,” The New York Times reported. Since then, several advocacy organizations such as the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Education Association collaborated on a study to gauge what effect the repeal had on 150,000 transgender students nationwide. The survey found 70% of transgender students have gone out of their way to avoid using campus bathrooms, sometimes causing health issues like urinary tract infections and kidney problems. Many of them said they avoided eating and drinking during the day so they wouldn’t have to use the bathroom.

As public schools become less safe for queer students, private schools aren’t doing much better. Mother Jones reported DeVos refused to commit to cutting federal funds for private schools that discriminate against LGBTQ students, even when she was directly asked about the issue in a June Senate hearing.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley responded to DeVos with clear disgust. “I think it’s important for the public to know that today the secretary of Education, before this committee, refused to affirm that she would put forward a program that would ban discrimination based on LGBTQ status of students or ban discrimination based on religion,” Merkley said.

From school to the workplace, few public spaces have been left untouched by the Trump administration’s policy shift. The Trump administration’s version of the Department of Health and Human Services survey for the elderly now suddenly omits questions about LGBTQ communities, which could negatively impact federal funding for the services elderly Americans rely on. “This was a stealth effort to strip LGBT[Q] elders out of the survey without anybody noticing,” Michael Adams, CEO of Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders, told NBC News.

Even some of the groups Trump is often outspoken about supporting, like military veterans and servicemen, are impacted by the administration’s unspoken stance against the LGBTQ community. 

The Military Times reported military leaders are now looking to roll back an Obama-era initiative that lifted the ban on enlisting transgender troops. Deputy Defense secretary Robert Work, who serves under Trump’s Defense secretary Gen. James Mattis, issued a memo in May about integrating transgender troops. According to USA Today, at least one expert said the memo’s language offered a loophole for departments to back out of protective provisions by questioning if the relatively new policy would hinder readiness for combat.

Meanwhile, Trump reportedly blocked @VoteVets, a pro-LGBTQ nonprofit veteran advocacy group, on Twitter and ignored Pride month traditions completely. Politico reported the Pentagon did not issue routine materials for LGBTQ Pride this year, the way it did for Women’s History Month and Black History Month.

“We are deeply disappointed to see that President Trump has not followed the tradition of issuing an LGBT[Q] Pride Month Proclamation for 2017,” Ashley Broadway-Mack, president of the American Military Partner Association, told Politico. “After decades of discrimination, today, LGBT[Q] service members proudly serve our nation openly — many with spouses and families proudly standing by their side.”

The White House hasn’t done a single thing this year to acknowledge Pride month, and reportedly ignored 30 BuzzFeed requests for an explanation regarding this break in tradition. Although the White House was uncharacteristically silent about LGBTQ issues in June, Trump did speak about protecting “family values” and defending “religious liberty” at the Road to Majority conference by the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

LGBTQ Nation called the event an “extremist” gathering hosted by “homophobic” groups. Trump praised evangelical leader James Dobson, who has called the movement for gay rights a “second civil war” and wrote a column suggesting it would be manly for people to take up arms against transgender women using public restrooms.

This should come as no surprise. Trump has also appointed several officials with a history of working against gay rights. Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said Trump has been “recruiting from a pool of the most vehemently anti-LGBTQ activists to run our great nation.” He hired James Renne as part of the transition team, then transferred Renne to a senior role at the Department of Agriculture, ProPublica reported. According to Pink News, Renne “purged gay employees” from the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency. A legal investigation published in 2013 proved that Renne’s campaign of workplace discrimination may have been motivated by a “negative personal attitude towards homosexuality.”

Trump also nominated Eric Dreiband to head the Justice Department's civil rights division, even though LGBTQ activists denounced Dreiband for his history of defending corporations against discrimination lawsuits. That’s right. The man literally in charge of civil rights discrimination cases built his legal career by fighting against plaintiffs in such cases. But he’s not the only 

Justice Department official with a history of hindering civil rights. CNN reported Sessions tried to ban an LGBTQ conference in Alabama long before he became Trump’s pick for attorney general.

During the last week of Pride month, Trump appointed Bethany Kozma to be the senior advisor to the Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Back in February, Kozma wrote a column about her instrumental role in pushing the Trump administration to repeal the guideline that protected transgender students in public school bathrooms.

There are dozens of ways Trump has broken his promise to defend the rights of LGBTQ communities. To make matters worse, the GOP healthcare plan will also put vulnerable LGBTQ communities at risk by slashing budgets for programs that disproportionately impact queer people, like affordable HIV testing at Planned Parenthood clinics and Medicaid provisions for HIV treatment. According to a 2014 Gallup study, around 25% of LGBTQ people struggled to afford healthcare, compared to 17% of heterosexual individuals. Despite Trump’s campaign promise to protect LGBTQ Americans from “hateful foreign ideology,” it appears some of the greatest risks to the freedoms they enjoy are right here at home.

Most of us don't believe Trump is anti Gay per say. He just doesn't care. He does care about making his base happy and part of his base are all types of evangelicals and very religious conservatives. They voted for him and he is gives them the people they like and recommend to him. A good example is nominating  someone who is worked against Equal rights and discrimination someone like Eric Dreiband who was nominated by Trump to Lead DOJ Civil Rights Division.