Donald Trump's Views On Transgender Issues

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When Donald Trump announced his running mate, Mike Pence to be his vice-president, many people of the LGBTQIA community across the country fell into a panic. Even though Trump was regarded by some as one of “the most pro-LGBT Republican presidential nominees ever, because he expressed sympathy for the LGBTQIA community after the Orlando nightclub shooting” (Grinberg), Trump did not necessarily express much about the issues that have erupted among the community as much as his conservative advisors, who took on more of an anti-LGBT platform from the start. President Trump’s proposal to rescind the Obama administration’s directive that required schools not to discriminate students and allow them the opportunity to use the bathroom that matches …show more content…
After his Address to Congress, Trump became more vocal about his views on the LGBTQIA community, stating that the bathroom bill should be up to the state’s decision (Gaydos). Since the election, internet memes and cartoons have portrayed certain issues that have erupted from both political candidates. In the example of the “bathroom debate”, a term to symbolize the “debate over transgender rights when it comes to bathrooms” (Grinberg and Stewart), many satirical internet memes and cartoons were created to express each party’s political stance on the issue. It is interesting to see how internet memes can heavily sway a person’s view on an issue even though it can be either a fact or opinion. According to a PewResearchCenter article by Michael Lipka, “the visibility of transgender Americans has increased in recent years, which has sparked a political debate over the rights of those …show more content…
However, soon after his address, Trump announced his plan to rescind the Obama administration’s bathroom directive and the whole community, especially those who identify as transgender, were worried once again about their safety. Many of the government officials that Trump had elected were on board with rescinding the guidelines (Peters, Becker, & Davis). This further pushed the “bathroom debate” and the opinions that came from both political parties. In an article by Ryan Gaydos, Sean Spicer, the White house spokesman, “did not go into specifics on the new set of guidelines being prepared by the Justice Department, but said Trump had long held that such matters should be left to the states—not the federal government—to decide.” But by allowing each state come up with their own guidelines on whether transgender people can use the bathroom that they identify with, could this mean that Trump is dismissing the importance of the issue? This should not be a state-by-state issue, but instead be a federal law all across the United States which will provide safety to those that identify as transgender and already feel discriminated in their community. Conservatives feel that this law “would allow pedophiles, perverts and predators into women’s bathrooms”

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