As I watch the election unfold on my computer on the night of November 8, my phone rings at about 11:55 p.m. It's my best friend Trevor Lake, and he's worried. I am too. I answered my phone and knew right away he was upset, "Anna, I'm going to lose my LGBT rights." His words replayed eerily in a loop in my head, "losing my LGBT rights, losing my LGBT rights, LGBT rights"....and it made me feel even worse. Because under Trump's presidency, as a white straight woman, I don't have to worry about this. But so many of my loved ones, friends, colleagues, basic human beings do.
We have elected a new president into the White House, and we are already worrying over him taking away rights. Wait....I thought we lived in the United States? But, if you're a white, Christian male on the spectrum, don't worry. Trump wouldn't do anything to hurt your rights.
The fact of the matter is that America is melting pot, and it contains a lot more individuals outside of the white male population. And at the moment, unfortunately, we have a man in office planning to cater only to that spectrum. And guess what? We put him there!
As if my friend has not gone through enough. As if my friend has not already spent half of his life lying about his sexual identity to fit in with society. And then as a country, we progressed. We took a step forward with LGBT rights, we made love win. Now, this man is promising to appoint new Supreme Court justices, ones with bias to overturn marriage equality, backsliding on protecting trans people from discrimination, and has announced he would sign the First Amendment Defense Act , a federal bill legalizing many forms of LGBT discrimination (Pence confirms once and for all that Trump will be an anti-LGBT president. thinkprogress.org). As I type this, Trump has been president of the United States for less than 12 hours. And he's already back tracking on this much?
Its not bout you anymore. Its not about which policies of his regarding our economy you agree with, or why you think Hillary is a "crooked" criminal, or why you stand with your candidate or ideology. What this is truly about is that if you're a part of the LGBT community, an immigrant, Muslim, a woman or fall under any category besides a white christian male, your rights are threatened. We need to unify. We need to protect our brothers and sisters in these long four years ahead of this. The time for activism starts now. The power of the people can be real.
We put Trump in office. We did that. But, we can also manipulate him in his term. We can fight the divisions of inequality, hate, and injustice. People unified, sharing a voice is underestimated. Please share and like this if you believe not just in LGBT rights, but human rights.
