PHOTO BY STEVE HINRICHS.
Andy Lee, standing exterior Phoenix Heart’s Out on Second facility along with his companion, Jasper Bagwunagijik, mentioned he worries about what a second time period for president-elect Donald Trump will convey for members of the LGBTQ+ group.
Members of the LGBTQ+ group in central Illinois have expressed worry, bewilderment and frustration after the Nov. 5 election of Donald Trump to a second nonconsecutive time period as president.
About 80 folks attended a “post-election help group” Nov. 7 at Phoenix Center’s Out on Second website at 120 E. Scarritt St., and lots of mentioned they fear the hate and ignorance fueled by Trump’s profitable marketing campaign will result in extra prejudice among the many basic public and psychological stress for people who find themselves lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender or nonbinary, heart Government Director Jonna Cooley mentioned.
“There was a spread of feelings, however principally individuals are scared, they’re offended they usually’re unhappy,” Cooley instructed Illinois Occasions.
The attendance was “fairly overwhelming,” she mentioned, with the strongest reactions coming from transgender individuals who watched whereas trans rights, medical care and LGBTQ+ participation in sports activities had been portrayed erroneously and ridiculed by the Trump marketing campaign and the Republican Occasion usually.
Trans folks had been upset that their dad and mom, whereas supportive of their kids’s conditions, nonetheless voted for Trump, Cooley mentioned. Mother and father instructed their kids Trump most likely would not carry by way of on his anti-trans guarantees and voted for him in hopes that financial circumstances would enhance, Cooley mentioned.
The anger and disappointment come from folks “who’re in households that supposedly love them” and are upset with members of the family “voting for an individual that does not respect them, and even, in some circumstances, acknowledge their existence,” she mentioned.
Homosexual folks had been nervous that same-sex marriage and their means to undertake kids could also be denied or made harder if Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, results in anti-LGBTQ+ lawsuits and unfavorable court docket and legislative motion on the federal and state degree, Cooley mentioned.
Extra help group conferences and academic outreach about LGBTQ+ points are deliberate, she mentioned.
A number of folks on the Nov. 7 occasion mentioned they have already got observed a change at their workplaces wherein derisive feedback towards LGBTQ+ people look like extra tolerated and individuals are extra prone to voice these sentiments, she mentioned.
“It appeared just like the individuals who had been anti-LGBTQ felt extra empowered to be impolite and disrespectful (after the election),” Cooley mentioned.
At a time when lower than 1% of the U.S. inhabitants identifies as transgender, Trump’s marketing campaign and pro-Trump teams spent about $95 million on promoting between Oct. 7 and Oct. 20, and greater than 41% of the advertisements funded by that cash had been “anti-trans,” according to the PBS NewsHour.
Anti-trans advertisements typically aired throughout main sporting occasions, and apparently had been meant to affect the votes of males, PBS reported.
The advertisements and Trump’s personal statements on the stump slammed participation by trans athletes in sports activities, public funds used to fund incarcerated individuals’ gender-affirming surgical procedures, and included allegations that adolescents had been going to highschool and receiving gender-affirming surgical procedures earlier than returning residence.
Cooley, who’s a lesbian, mentioned the advertisements’ claims had been both false, deceptive or derogatory towards LGBTQ+ people.
PBS reported that solely a handful of incarcerated trans folks have obtained publicly funded gender-affirming surgical procedures.
Relating to trans athletes in sports activities, Cooley mentioned the advertisements failed to say that guidelines put in place by organizations such because the NCAA and Illinois Excessive College Affiliation forestall trans athletes from competing in conditions wherein they’d have an unfair benefit.
Andy Lee, 42, a trans man and state employee who lives within the Springfield space and voted for Harris, mentioned Trump’s election was “disappointing however not utterly surprising.
“I’m involved,” mentioned Lee, who additionally works on contract for Phoenix Heart. “I’m nervous that my human rights and the human rights of a few of the folks I am associates with, and members of the family, will probably be impacted. I believe quite a lot of Trump’s insurance policies, particularly in well being care and training, are discriminatory in direction of LGBT folks, particularly trans folks.”
Trump most likely will enact insurance policies or push for laws to make gender-affirming care – reminiscent of medication, surgical procedure and mental-health counseling – tougher to acquire, particularly for adolescents, Lee mentioned.
By means of the federally supported Medicaid and Medicare applications, Trump “has the ability to disrupt that utterly,” Lee mentioned.
Even the president-elect’s threats to enact public coverage could have a chilling impact on well being care suppliers, he mentioned.
“I believe quite a lot of occasions the language that he makes use of is so broad that these suppliers turn out to be terrified of repercussions,” Lee mentioned.
Lee, whose companion, Jasper Bagwunagijik, 25, is also a transgender man, mentioned he’s glad to reside in a state that “protects my rights.” Lee mentioned he appreciated Gov. JB Pritzker’s current feedback that he would work to defend trans rights from intrusion by the federal authorities.
However Trump might make it harder for public faculty academics to coach college students about “totally different sorts of households” and roll again office initiatives in “variety, fairness and inclusion,” Lee mentioned.
Even the Supreme Courtroom ruling legalizing same-sex marriage could possibly be rolled again by future Supreme Courtroom justices beneath Trump, Lee mentioned. “We by no means thought that Roe v. Wade would go on this route, so I do not know that something is protected,” he mentioned.
Lee mentioned it is ridiculous that Trump and his allies spent a lot time on anti-trans rhetoric as an alternative of discovering options for the unhoused or the opioid disaster or “actually any drawback that People are going through proper now, just like the financial system.”
