Trump’s administration is no friend of the LGBT community

Trump recently took two more actions that contradict his claim that he is a friend to the LGBT community. Trump signed an executive order that revoked prior orders that provided anti-discrimination protections for federal LGBT employees. Specifically, the president’s decree revokes three previous orders signed by former President Barack Obama.

President Obama’s order required large federal contracts be able to demonstrate that they have complied for at least three years with 14 federal laws and regulations. Several of these laws prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender stereotyping or gender identity, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in employment, and the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibit discrimination based on HIV status and other disabilities.

By removing the requirement that federal contractors demonstrate that they have not violated these federal laws, “[t]his administration has made it extremely difficult to enforce these federal laws as applied to federal contractors,” Camilla Taylor, a Lambda Legal attorney, said. “It’s sending a message to these companies that the federal government simply doesn’t care whether or not they violate the law.”

Second, the Census Bureau announced it would not include questions related to sexual orientation or gender identity, even though an earlier draft of subjects planned for the 2020 census initially included a proposal to include sexual orientation and gender identity. But when the final report issued, these inclusions were not listed in the long-awaited document, which outlined new categories presented to Congress this week. In a statement, the Census Bureau said the report including the proposed addition of sexual orientation and gender identity was released “inadvertently” and had been “corrected” before it was sent to Congress.

The National LGBTQ Task Force has published an unredacted copy of the report.

LGBT advocates had pressed for the inclusion of the questions. The census, conducted every ten years since 1790 to collect population demographics, has never included questions about sexual orientation or gender identity, even though the census had first tallying same-sex unmarried couples in 1990. Until the now corrected draft, there had never been specific questions aimed at identifying LGBT individuals.

Meghan Maury, criminal and economic justice project director at the National LGBTQ Task Force, issued a sharp rebuke, calling the latest move by the Trump administration an attempt to deny LGBTQ people freedom, justice, and equity.

“LGBTQ people are not counted on the Census – no data is collected on sexual orientation or gender identity,” Maury said. “Information from these surveys helps the government to enforce federal laws like the Violence Against Women Act and the Fair Housing Act and to determine how to allocate resources like housing supports and food stamps. If the government doesn’t know how many LGBTQ people live in a community, how can it do its job to ensure we’re getting fair and adequate access to the rights, protections and services we need?”

These steps are the latest in a series of moves against LGBT citizens — starting with the immediate removal of all LGBTQ-related content from the White House website – and rolling back protections for transgender students.

via Second Nexus
photo: WashingtonBlade.com