[ad_1]
At a recent celebration of San Francisco’s vibrant transgender past, one speaker after another directed the crowd’s attention to a troubling future, holding up the November presidential election as a turning point for the LGBTQ community + and the nation in general.
“This election will determine our destiny,” said Sofía Sabina Ríos Dorantes, deputy director of El/La Para TransLatinas, a local advocacy organization. “It will determine whether we continue to face discrimination and marginalization at (a) disproportionate rate, or whether we can continue to march toward the recognition and respect we deserve.”
Last week’s third annual kickoff to Transgender Pride Month — the first to even be recognized at the state level — was an opportunity to celebrate the progress of the transgender community in one of the nation’s longest-lasting havens for LGBTQ+ people, with champagne served under the ornate dome of San Francisco City Hall. It was also a show of defiance at a dangerous time for queer people in the country.
Thousands of people participate in the All Black Lives Matter solidarity march to mark LGBTQ pride month along Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood in 2020.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
In three months, Americans will choose between Vice President Kamala Harris, who is a Bay Area native and longtime LGBTQ+ ally, and former President Trump, who has a long history of attacking queer rights and has aligned with some of the nation’s most virulent anti. -LGBTQ+ political groups.
In chats with family and nights out with friends, in gay bars and organizing meetings and in a virtual call of about 20,000 queer people last month, many LGBTQ+ Americans are making it increasingly clear that they see Trump and the broader Republican agenda as an existential one. threat
“It’s no exaggeration to say that our lives are on the line,” said Honey Mahogany, executive director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives. “It’s whether we can survive or not – or we’ll be in a position where we’re in fear for our lives.”
The places of the candidates
Ahead of the 20,000-person call hosted by the Human Rights Campaign last month, the group released a letter endorsing Harris from more than 1,100 LGBTQ+ leaders, organizers and celebrities.
The letter praised Harris for his decision as California attorney general not to defend Proposition 8, a state ballot measure that barred same-sex marriage, and for his support for the federal Equality Act , which prohibits anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in employment, housing and accommodation. other areas.
Vice President Kamala Harris makes a surprise appearance at Capitol Pride DC in Washington in 2022.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
The letter praised the Biden-Harris administration as “the most pro-LGBTQ+ administration in history,” noting its support for anti-discrimination policies and LGBTQ+ health protections in the United States and his defense of LGBTQ+ rights around the world.
On the call, Mawuli Tugbenyoh, senior co-chair of the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club in San Francisco, said Harris has been a queer ally since before his first election as district attorney of San Francisco in 2003 and is genuine in its allegiance.
“Vice President Harris has always been there for us and fought for our community every step of the way,” Tugbenyoh said.
On Tuesday, queer rights groups also hailed Harris’ selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as his running mate. They noted that Walz has a record of alliances dating back to the 1990s — when, as a teacher, he served as an adviser to his school’s gay-straight alliance — and as governor he signed bills which prohibit so-called conversion therapy and protect the care of gender affirmations.
The same organizations called Trump a major threat to queer families.
Trump has appointed anti-LGBTQ+ officials throughout his administration. His Education Department has revoked school protections for transgender students, while his Justice and Health and Human Services departments have revoked anti-discrimination protections for transgender people, including in health care settings. .
Trump appointed a list of judges considered to be anti-LGBTQ+ and banned transgender people from serving in the military – a policy that President Biden reversed. In recent years, Trump-aligned Republicans have introduced a flood of anti-LGBTQ+ bills at the local, state and federal levels, prompting the Human Rights Campaign to declare a “state of emergency” for queer Americans last year.
Concerns have only increased since Project 2025, a plan for a second Trump term produced by a host of former Trump aides, the Heritage Foundation and more than 100 other conservative groups, has come under fire. The plan – which Trump has tried to distance himself from despite having close ties to its authors – challenges the existence of transgender people, calls the rainbow flag a “symbol of division” and calls for a “biblically based” definition of marriage and and families.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who also has close links with Project 2025 authors, attacked LGBTQ+ rights and mocked queer people. Vance has opposed protections for same-sex marriage, LGBTQ+ workers and gender-affirming health care, called LGBTQ+ activists “groomers” and supported the confirmation of overseas diplomats questioning his support for LGBTQ+-friendly initiatives.
Trump also outlined different Anti-LGBTQ+ policies in “Agenda 47”, his plan for a second term. He says Trump will end all federal programs “that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age,” withhold Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to children, ensure “consequences serious” for teachers who recognize transgender students. identity and withdraw federal funding from their schools.
It concludes a campaign video about the plan with the patently false claim that the existence of transgender children “was never heard of” until “the radical left invented it just a few years ago.”
“We’re not coming back”
Not all LGBTQ+ people support Harris. Stephen Schumacher, a 33-year-old gay political consultant, helps lead the Detroit chapter of Log Cabin Republicans, an organization for LGBTQ+ conservatives. He supports Trump.
Schumacher pointed to the fact that the Republican Party took its longtime opposition to same-sex marriage out of its platform this year — after Trump ordered the document scuttled — as evidence that the party is coming on the issue. He said the Log Cabin events he attended at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month were well received.
“I feel my rights are protected,” Schumacher said.
Richard Grenell, a gay Trump loyalist and former director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, once called Trump “the most pro-gay president in American history” and this week predicted that the GOP nominee ” will win 50% of the gay vote.” “
Grenell, of California, has criticized the rights of transgender youth and the Equality Act and has been branded as anti-LGBTQ+ by queer rights groups. On Wednesday, he took a Republican talking point about Walz, saying Minnesota’s protections around sexual orientation somehow benefit pedophiles.
Across the country, many queer people find such beliefs astonishing — if not repulsive.
Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the 2015 Supreme Court case that won same-sex couples the right to marry in the country, said it’s obvious that LGBTQ+ rights — including the right to marriage – are threatened.
Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in Obergefell vs. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in the country, arrives for a press conference on the steps of the Texas Capitol in Austin in 2015 .
(Eric Gay/Associated Press)
“The Republican Party has made it clear through statements, through policies, through basically everything they’ve done, that they don’t believe that queer people deserve the same rights, the same respect, the same dignity,” Obergefell said. .
The Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who is gay and serves as chairman of the Congressional Equality Caucus, said that LGBTQ+ people have seen in recent years as Republicans have launched one attack after another on the care of gender affirmations, pride flags, drag. the queen’s history classes, queer books and the mere mention of being gay in schools, and you know it’s only getting worse under Trump.
“In the Republican Party, there is a real regression when it comes to equality, and I could see almost everything being pushed forward,” Pocan said.
Among those attending the Transgender Pride Month celebration in San Francisco was state Sen. Scott Wiener, who is gay. “We know that there are forces in this country – and we see it more widely now with Project 2025 – (that) have never overcome the fact that we are no longer in 1950 or 1850 or whatever they want to return to us,” he said . “They never got over it, and they want all of us gone.”
“Of course,” Wiener said, “we’re not going anywhere.”
Donna Personna, a 77-year-old transgender participant who has lived in San Francisco since she was a teenager, said Trump and other Republicans are pretending people like her never existed because they don’t want to acknowledge that the American past they wanted to be . see returned was a hard and unfair place for many.
By contrast, Harris made “We’re not going back” a campaign slogan, Personna noted. “And I’m with her on that.”