Mark the day on your calendar as Nov. 8, 2016: the day Donald J. Trump was elected as the 45th president of the United States of America.
Throughout the entire election process last night, social media was rattled, or as the kids now say "shook," at what they were witnessing in front of their very eyes.
A prominent trend of the social media chatter were seen on Twitter and Tumblr. Series of sympathetic posts regarding concerns to all individuals who identify as any of the following: Latino, LGBT+, female, Muslim, or any other form of minority in America.
The point that I am trying to make here is that all of those claiming to the LGBT+ community have a new reality of hardship to face in this country after everything that has been fought for already.
From what we saw from the Pulse Nightclub shooting, Trump did respond once by sending prayers to the families of the victims, but, the fact is that Trump is incapable of showing real sympathy for the 49 deaths and 53 injured peoples involved. Instead, hardly an hour later, Trump was well prepared to use the situation to prove that he was "right" in regards to terrorism.
If anything, the lack of actual care for the nation's largest mass shooting should be noted.
But, not only is Trump a thorn in the side for the LGBT+ community, but his vice presidential choice is not a ray of hope either.
For those who do not know, Trump's running mate and vice presidential candidate is Mike Pence. Now, as vice president of the US, Pence is an legitimate vision of disdain for the LGBT+ community.
Since the year 2000, Pence has had no intention of supporting the LGBT+ community by any means. In fact, for his Congressional campaign, Pence made his feelings clear on the basis of funding HIV treatment. “Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior,” said by Pence according to a June 14th Buzzfeed article. With that being said, Pence's position was to remove funding to these services, and instead channel the funds into gay conversion therapy efforts.
The type of conversion therapy he is advocating for is electroshock therapy. This being said, Pence finds it just fine and dandy to abuse individuals in order for them to be his idea of "normal."
Not only that, but while in the state of Indiana, he favored laws and policies that protected individuals that attacked, and discriminated against, members of the LGBT+ community
The fact of the matter is this:
For myself, being someone who is a part of the LGBT+ community, the idea of someone like Pence partially being in charge of the place I live in is astonishingly terrifying. Despite Pence only being the vice president, and not the commander in chief of the country, he still has influence over the citizens of this nation. If given the opportunity, he can still preach hate and inequality to undo all the work accomplished by the LGBT+ community that got us to where we are today. All Trump has to do is being slightly interested in the ideas presented for him to actually act on them.
For all of those who say I am being over-dramatic, you do not understand what it is like to be a targeted citizen for being a minority, especially over matters you cannot control. There are rights, that have only been recently granted, for our community that we will now be wondering about whether or not they will be taken away.
The next four years could be devastating years for our community, during the Trump-Pence term. For all it is worth, anyone in the LGBT+ community should not just sit around and wait to see what happens. Never lose hold of your rights that were fought so hard for. For any friends in the LGBT+ community reading this, take care of yourself, stay strong, stay positive. We will survive this.
