Trump's first 100 days in the president's office were marked by dozens of executive actions, heated protest marches, and even a Senate investigation into election tampering. For many LGBTQ+ Americans, the early days of Trump's Republican administration have been fear-inducing. An early draft of a reported executive order legalizing broad discrimination against LGBTQ+ people threw the community into a panic. The dismantling of Obama-era protections through executive orders came with the simple stroke of a pen.
GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis once told NBC News, “One hundred days of Trump translates into 100 days of erasure for the LGBTQ+ community. From the Census exclusion to rescinding Obama's guidance for trans youth in schools, and lack of any LGBTQ+ mentions on the White House website, he has spent the early days of his administration trying to remove us from the very fabric of this country, and we must resist.”
Here are only a few of the incidents and actions that the Trump administration took against the LGBTQ+ community in the first 100 days. If we dig deep we will find many occasions proving the administration's desire to cancel the LGBTQ+ existence. Many of the appointments made during the Trump administration were a sign of his apathy towards the queer community. A 2019 report by Lambda Legal indicates that 36% of his appointees have expressed bias and bigotry towards queer people.
January 20: Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Outside the gates of the inauguration, at least 200 people were arrested in massive protests that swarm D.C.
January 21: LGBTQ+ content was removed from White House and Department of State websites on the very first day of Trump's presidency. While other federal websites still retained some related content, it appeared that LGBTQ+ references were the only removals from the White House and State Department sites.
January 31: A leaked draft of an anti-LGBTQ+ executive order causes panic and a protest at the historic Stonewall National Monument..
March 22: Trump appointed Roger Severino to lead the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services. LGBTQ+ advocates found the move disturbing, as Severino dismissed transgender equality.
March 27: Trump signed an executive order revoking Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Act.
Making Schools Less Safe
While we talk about the laws made in states like Florida in 2022 which created hurdles for the growth and acceptance the w, we should not forget the contribution of Donald Trump in this madness.
Queer students have had difficulty accessing education under Donald Trump, due to a rollback of protections and a failure to investigate cases of violence in schools. Trump's Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos began dismantling regulations that protected transgender students immediately after her appointment. She also suspended investigations into complaints from trans students that they were denied educational access. A 2019 report by the Center for American Progress showed that the Trump administration was far more likely to dismiss discrimination complaints than previous administrations.
This failure to provide safe access to education is of particular concern in light of the difficulties that LGBTQ+ students already faced: GLSEN's 2017 National School Climate Survey showed that 70 percent of LGBTQ+ students faced harassment at school, and are disproportionately likely to miss school and lose opportunities to pursue higher education.
Trump wishes to get back into the POTUS office
After finishing his first presidential term from 2017 to 2021, he is thinking of running for the presidential election again in 2024. Trump's journey to the presidency this time, however, looks gloomy and full of hurdles.
Former US President Donald Trump has launched his third bid for the White House, declaring: “America's comeback starts right now.”
Trump's announcement comes as some fellow Republicans blame him for the party's lackluster performance in last week's midterm elections. President Joe Biden, who defeated Mr. Trump two years ago, has said he may run for re-election in 2024.
Speaking to an invited crowd from the ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago private club in Palm Beach last year, he said: “We are a nation in decline. For millions of Americans, the past two years under Joe Biden have been a time of pain, hardship, anxiety, and despair.”
His wife, Melania Trump, joined him on stage at the end of the speech. But there were fewer family members present than at some of his past events and Ivanka Trump and Donald Jr did not attend.
Mr. Trump's unusually early declaration for the election of 5 November 2024 is being seen as a tactic to steal a march on potential rivals for the Republicans' White House nomination.
Although Mr. Trump is the first to enter the race and instantly becomes the front-runner, he is expected to face challenges.
They may include his own former Vice-President, Mike Pence, who is 63, and rising star Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 44.
Mr. Trump became the first president ever to be impeached twice, although congressional Democrats were thwarted in their bid to remove him from office by Senate Republicans.
What do Ivanka Trump and Mary Trump have to say about this?
Ivanka Trump has decided to bow out of US politics and not actively join her father's bid to retake the White House in 2024, saying she had chosen “to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family”.
In a statement, Ivanka Trump said: “I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics.”
Ivanka Trump and Kushner played key roles in Trump's administration and became a lightning rod for anger at many of its excesses, in part due to their previous lives as mainstays of Manhattan's elite social scene, which is heavily Democratic.
She recently testified before the January 6 committee, the special congressional panel investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 in which extremist supporters of Trump attempted to overturn his election defeat.
Ivanka Trump was with her father in the White House that day and is one of more than 800 witnesses the committee has interviewed. Congressman Bennie Thompson, the committee's chairman, described her testimony as not “chatty” but helpful.
While talking to a known Podcast, Mary Trump, the niece of former President Donald Trump, said that she grew up listening to her family making racist remarks. Mary didn't specify any of the demeaning racist remarks. However, she told The Washington Post in July 2020 that the Trump family often used racist and antisemitic slurs when she was a child. She said, “Growing up, it was sort of normal to hear them use the N-word or use antisemitic expressions.” Trump's niece has become a fierce critic of the former president in recent years.
What do other republicans think of this anti-LGBTQ+ probable presidential candidate?
While nearly a dozen 2024 campaign operatives and advisers who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity insisted that Trump's political appeal is more limited than ever, most said they still wouldn't want their horse to be first in the race after him. Their reasons vary. Some worry about sustainability, wanting to saturate the airwaves just before the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire instead of burning through cash to build name ID while Trump is pummeling them on his Truth Social platform without distraction. Others are hesitant to subject themselves to the concentrated attacks they would no doubt face from the former president and other potential rivals if they were next to jump in, unsure if the earned media in a two-person field would work for or against them.
Talking about rivals of Trump for the 2024 election, no one has drawn Trump's ire as much as Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who soared to popularity among conservatives after waging war against public health officials and bureaucrats during the coronavirus pandemic and more recently against “woke” corporations.
What does the reputed LGBTQ+ news show, Queer News Tonight has to say about trump?
Last year, one of the episodes of Queer News Channel took a dig at Trump, his anti-gay rhetoric, and stupidity when he said LGBTQ+ people are ‘Sickos' and ‘Grooming' kindergarteners at a speech at the America First Policy Institute's first annual conference in July 2022. He also attacked puberty blockers while also saying he has no clue what they are, and attacked transgender athletes, saying that “We should not allow Men to play in women's sports.”
His exact words were, “Federal state and local government should aggressively enforce existing statutes to stop the perverted sexualization of minor children.”
You can check out the episode here. The lead host Fay and the cohosts discussed the hatred of right-wing towards the community. The anchors also talked about how the speech made it look okay to hate and dismiss terms, and people which we ‘don't understand'.
