(KRON) — Transgender rights advocates are reacting to President Trump’s inaugural speech that affirmed going forward the U.S. government will only recognize two genders: male and female.
“It’s a very ominous development for transgender people,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights. “Transgender people simply want to be able to live, work, have families, use facilities safely like anyone else, and this appears to be a wholesale attack on the ability of transgender people to exist and function in any meaningful way.”
Minter said the executive orders that will come next could require transgender people to be identified only by their sex at birth on their passport, and that’s just the beginning.
“Workplace protections eliminated, anti-discrimination protections in education, for example, young people being harassed at school because they’re transgender, eliminated,” said Minter. “Housing protections eliminated so that people could be denied housing or turned away from shelters because they’re transgender, an ability to obtain federal IDs, like passports, taken away.”
Honey Mahogany, who directs the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives, said she thinks the pendulum will eventually swing back, but for now, the transgender community must prepare.
“They may start with trans people, but if we don’t protect people starting now and protect our most vulnerable, soon everybody will be on the plate,” said Mahogany. “We’re already seeing an immigration of transpeople of all walks of life, to places like San Francisco and California.”
Mahogany added, “I think it’s really important to look at solidarity. Find your community nearby, form coalitions for mutual aid networks, because the sad reality is, as they dismantle a lot of these things, especially in those red states, they’re going to have less and less support.”
Transgender activists said the community should not lose hope, as legal challenges are already in the works and the conservative U.S. Supreme Court may provide help.
“It is a court that very recently held that federal law protects transgender people from discrimination,” said Minter. “Because of that decision, I am very optimistic that this court is not going to turn its back on that very recent ruling. I think the court will stick to its guns on that position.”
(KRON) — Transgender rights advocates are reacting to President Trump’s inaugural speech that affirmed going forward the U.S. government will only recognize two genders: male and female. “It’s a very ominous development for transgender people,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights. “Transgender people simply want to be […]
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