LGBTQ+ Discrimination

Caitlyn Enos

8 October, 2019

Trump Administration Discrimination

Throughout the years, the LGBTQ+ community has grown in public number and in popularity. More youth are coming out to their friends and families and being welcomed with open arms. The community and society have evolved in such a dramatic way; people are being widely accepted than they were back in the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s.

However, there are still copious amounts of oppression and cruel treatment. On the twelfth day of June in 2016, forty-nine innocent persons in a gay club were the victims of a mass shooting. Forty-nine members of a community wanting only to fit into society and be able to live their lives without judgement. Forty-nine people died because of a world filled with hatred. President Barack Obama would call it, “an act of terror and an act of hate,” during a speech at the White House on the topic. In 2016, the number of gender-identity related attacks was 124.

And now, as of 2019, the discrimination and ill-will of this community has hit an all time high. The 45th president Donald J. Trump has done horrendous things to the LGBT community. Since the beginning, Trump has shown major discrimination to this group. On Inauguration Day, he removed all mentions of LGBT people from the website of the White House. On March 13, 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services announced they would no longer collect surveys from LGBT persons. On April 4th of the same year, the Department of Justice and Labor cancelled conferences with all LGBT organizations. July 26th, 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted that transgender persons will no longer be allowed to serve in the military. Currently, a bill is being discussed on the issue that LGBT persons should no longer being protected under the Fifteenth Amendment of our Bill of Rights. The president of the United States of America wishes to remove LGBT rights, which would take away a whole community’s basic human rights, the rights given to them in the Constitution.

In 1866, the Fifteenth Amendment was passed which forbids any state to deprive an individual of their right to vote. Almost 100 years later, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others fought for civil rights in 1964 America. Now, the question at hand, is if this Civil Rights Act only applied to those of African American decent being discriminated for their skin color.

But here’s another question, what about those being discriminated against for whom they love? Heterosexual people have not died for their sexuality, and they have not been the victims of hatred in this department. Why should individuals, and even a whole community, be hated on and lose their basic human rights because of the love they have? The unconstitutional mess of the Trump Administration is feeding into the unnecessary hate.

This decision will be brought to the Supreme Court on October 8th, 2019 to decide if people of the LGBT community will be given the same rights. If this passes as a discrimination against this community, businesses will have the right and ability to fire their LGBT employees for that reason alone. It’s a step backwards in our American progress.