TRANS STUDENT PROTECTIONS RESCINDED
In February, the Trump administration dealt the sharpest blow yet to transgender civil rights in revoking the policy set forth by the Obama administration on transgender students. Whereas the Justice and Education departments had previously warned schools they had to treat trans students according to their gender identity, in rest room usage, locker room access and sports team participation, the new White House scrapped all that.
And that was music to the ears of supporters like Michelle Bachman, the former representative from Minnesota who declared God “answered the prayers of believers” to prevent transgender people from accessing bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
We were in a situation where the president of the United States on his own just issued a sheet of paper and said, overnight, every single public school in the country would have to have the girls’ bathrooms open to the boys and the boys’ bathrooms open to the girls.
Rescinding the guidelines to schools that guaranteed protections from discrimination, which the prior administration had based on its interpretation of Title IX, resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting a hearing of the case of Gavin Grimm, a trans boy in Virginia fighting for his right to use the boys’ bathroom. That case was kicked back to the lower court which now will decide whether his school district can lawfully restrict transgender students to either separate gender neutral facilities or to rest rooms matching the gender they were assigned on their birth certificates.
On that same issue, anti-LGBTQ Attorney General Jeff Sessions dropped the lawsuit his predecessor filed against North Carolina in response to a fake-repeal of the controversial law known as HB2.
It was reported Sessions squabbled with Education secretary Betsy DeVos, over the decision to rescind trans protections for students, but she was only willing to fight so far, and reportedly bent to pressure from President Trump.
THE WOLF IN THE HEN HOUSE
As frightening as Sessions and DeVos can be to trans Americans, it was the appointment of anti-LGBTQ activist Roger Severino to lead the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights that sent shockwaves across the community last month.
In his previous role as Director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society for the Heritage Foundation, Severino spoke out against the civil rights protections he will now be tasked with upholding and supported the wholesale repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which thus far has not been accomplished.
But the threat posed by repealing the ACA has trans advocates fearing that HHS will stop enforcing Obama’s nondiscrimination rule, which bans insurers from discriminating against someone on the basis of gender, and is deeply unpopular among Republicans. They remain divided on how to move forward and so for now, Obamacare remains but health insurance companies are already denying claims as they wait to see what happens in Congress.
BREAKING HIS PROMISE ON LGBTQ PROTECTIONS
Last month, Trump reversed a significant achievement toward equality in employment from the Obama era. He issued a new executive order that rescinded President Obama’s Executive Order 13673, otherwise known as “Fair Pay & Safe Workplaces” order. The EO required companies that want to do business with the federal government to disclose their records on job discrimination. Since 2014, companies receiving large federal contracts have been required to show they have complied for at least three years with federal laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender stereotyping.
“This sends a message that the government condones discrimination,” said Lambda Legal CEO Rachel B. Tiven in a statement.
Scrapping an order like this one is different than not adopting one. It’s not surprising given Donald Trump’s sordid history with women that this administration is allowing companies to hide sex discrimination – including sexual harassment.
Furthermore, this administration is inviting businesses to the table that violate equal pay and fair wage laws, ignore laws requiring family medical leave, or target employees for discrimination based on race, sex, gender identity, gender non-conformity (including being gay or lesbian), disability (including HIV), and numerous other grounds.
All of these things violate the law. Companies that flout the law should be sued – not invited to win our tax dollars.
The new executive order came just weeks after the White House pledged not to overturn this Obama executive order. His daughter Ivanka and husband Jared Kushner reportedly took credit for that decision, but were nowhere to be found when Trump essentially broke his promise to keep in place the order on nondiscriminaton of contractors signed by Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Clinton and Obama.
IMMIGRATION BANS
One of the president’s biggest battles — and so far, least successful — have been over immigration, and federal judges keep striking down ban after ban on the basis that they are discriminating against a certain religion, Islam. But as TeenVogue reported, this issue is also of key significance to trans immigrants.
The immigration guidelines set forth in February sought to expand the definition of deportable “criminals” to include individuals who have been accused of a crime, even if they’ve never been tried and convicted. Immigration officials could potentially use them to speed up deportations without court hearings.
For undocumented trans and gender nonconforming youth, particularly trans women and femme individuals, this could lead to detention and deportation.
There are around 1.1 million undocumented youth living in the U.S., but the number of undocumented minors who are trans or gender nonconforming is unknown. There are at least 267,000 undocumented LGBTQ immigrants in the US, 15,000 to 50,000 of whom publicly identify as transgender. But given the discrimination experienced by those who are openly trans, queer and undocumented, this may be just a fraction of those who worry being out could lead to their prosecution, detention and possible deportation.
SUMMARY
So what did President Trump accomplish so far that is a positive for trans Americans?
Um.
Wait, we’re still looking.
How about… no.
Okay, this is the only thing we could sorta kinda present as an “accomplishment:” Trump chose singer Jackie Evancho, the sister of a transgender woman, to sing at his inauguration, thus bringing renewed focus to the issue of trans rights. Evancho has since said she wants to sit down with Trump to educate him on trans issues, and his spokesman Sean Spicer even said he would.
But so far, that hasn’t happened. So even that accomplishment turns out to be another dud. Maybe in the next 100 days?
