White Home claims Trump is pro-LGBTQ, however his insurance policies say in any other case

Throughout a Monday press briefing, White Home press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was requested whether or not the administration would contemplate lifting the transgender army ban that President Donald Trump first tweeted about three years in the past this month.

However as a substitute of answering the query straight, McEnany deferred, saying the administration is “proud” of its LGBTQ report and listed off a number of White Home initiatives for homosexual rights, particularly a pledge to decriminalize homosexuality globally, a change to the ban on homosexual males donating blood, and a pledge to finish the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030.

None of these insurance policies have something to do with the transgender army ban, and solely certainly one of them, ending the AIDS epidemic, is expounded to trans folks.

One of many few coverage wins transgender folks have secured prior to now three years got here thanks to not the White Home, however to the Supreme Courtroom. In Bostock v. Clayton County, the Courtroom dominated that employment discrimination towards LGBTQ folks is intercourse discrimination.

“It is going to be extraordinarily useful to our authorized problem for the trans army ban as a result of it unequivocally helps and validates the principle declare that we’re making in these instances, which is that the ban discriminate based mostly on intercourse,” Shannon Minter, an lawyer on the Nationwide Heart for Lesbian Rights (which introduced a go well with towards the ban), informed Vox. “I’m undecided folks totally admire the scope of the victory in Bostock; it goes far past Title VII.”

Greater than 110 Democratic lawmakers wrote to Protection Secretary Mark Esper and Legal professional Basic Invoice Barr final Wednesday asking them to raise the trans army ban, citing that call. “This coverage is an assault on transgender service members who’re risking their lives to serve our nation and it needs to be reversed instantly,” the letter said.

And regardless of what McEnany mentioned concerning the administration’s report, it has rolled again quite a few trans-specific and LGBTQ-related insurance policies since taking workplace in January 2017 — on points starting from the way to deal with trans college students to rolling again LGBTQ well being care protections. And even these McEnany touted by title are being actively undermined by different administration actions.

“Trump has repeatedly sought to undermine LGBTQ rights and to recommend in any other case is solely improper,” Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Management Convention on Civil and Human Rights, informed Vox in a press release.

Trump’s “pro-LGBTQ” polices aren’t what they appear

In his 2019 State of the Union speech, Trump introduced a brand new initiative to finish the HIV/AIDS epidemic within the US by 2030. Like lots of the pro-LGBTQ insurance policies McEnany cited, it sounds spectacular when taken by itself — however to these really doing the work on these points, Trump’s guarantees ring hole.

Although particulars had been imprecise early on, some HIV activists raised eyebrows on the late goal date of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which matched that of the United Nations for ending the epidemic worldwide — together with within the hardest-hit areas like sub-Saharan Africa. US activists thought it could possibly be achieved right here a lot earlier.

“In 2018, in anticipation of a federal initiative popping out, we put collectively a community-led street map to speak about what it might take to finish HIV as an epidemic, [and] we’ve been speaking for a very long time from the angle of ending it by 2025, versus 2030,” Jeremiah Johnson, HIV challenge supervisor at Therapy Motion Group in New York Metropolis, informed Vox.

Johnson drew a comparability between the administration’s effort and that of Australia, which has massively scaled up entry to PrEP, a drug that forestalls transmission of HIV, for weak populations — a key step to reaching any eradication aim. “We may begin to see dramatic reductions and new infections proper now, however we lack a nationwide plan for scale-up of prep and complete HIV prevention,” he mentioned. “Whereas this initiative talks usually about sure pillars and a goal, we don’t have a pathway on the way to get to large scale-up. So the priority for our coalition has additionally that that is going to be rhetoric with out substance.”

McEnany additionally named the pledge to struggle the criminalization of homosexuality by international nations — one thing that no earlier Republican administration had dedicated to. Implementation of that pledge, nevertheless, has been spotty at finest, advocates say.

“Below the Obama administration, the US was actually enjoying a management position, not on one specific human proper of LGBTQ folks, however on the idea that LGBT persons are entitled to the identical human rights as everybody else,” mentioned Ryan Thoreson, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “I’m fearful that below the Trump administration, we’ve seen extra of a slim dedication to serve. An actual retreat from the broad panoply of LGBT human rights, each at residence and overseas.”

Thoreson famous that the Trump administration has used the initiative to crack down on nations it considers enemies, like Iran, whereas overlooking that very same dedication because it cozies as much as homophobic regimes in locations like Poland, Hungary, and Brazil. “They haven’t actually used their energy in a visual, apparent strategy to actually urge allies to do higher on LGBT rights,” mentioned Thoreson.

The administration has attacked queer and trans rights practically from day one

Nearly instantly after Trump took workplace in 2017, the administration rolled again an Obama-era memo directing faculties to guard trans college students from discrimination. Then that July, Trump introduced he would order the army to ban trans folks from serving. The administration went after trans prisoners as nicely in Might 2018, deciding that generally, trans folks needs to be housed in keeping with their assigned intercourse at start.

Simply two weeks in the past, the Division of Housing and City Improvement proposed a rule permitting homeless shelters to accommodate trans folks in keeping with their birth-assigned intercourse.

Maybe most crucial was the administration’s assault on LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections within the Inexpensive Care Act, finalized in a brand new rule on June 12. That rule, mentioned Johnson, threatens the administration’s HIV eradication aim.

“It’s unimaginable to delink [HIV prevention] from a dedication to human rights and uplifting probably the most marginalized communities in your society,” he mentioned. “You can’t assault on all ranges the life, liberty, property, and happiness of a neighborhood, and anticipate which you could really deal with well being care disparities in that neighborhood. Nor are you able to say that you’re really upholding your democratic American duty.”

When somebody is uninsured or is afraid of being discriminated towards by docs, they’re much less prone to get the care they want, and that care is essential to stopping the unfold of HIV. Trans folks, particularly trans girls, are particularly liable to contracting the virus. If docs and insurance coverage firms are in a position to deny care to trans girls, HIV prevention efforts endure.

It’s clear that regardless of McEnany’s declarations in any other case, coverage, not rhetoric, tells the story of the Trump administration’s assist for LGBTQ rights.

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