Washington, D.C. — For the past four years, LGBTQ Americans have withstood a barrage of attacks on multiple fronts, perpetrated by an administration that displayed a blatant disregard for their dignity, health, safety, and basic human rights. Even on its way out the door, the Trump administration attempted to undermine nondiscrimination protections for transgender students and signal to taxpayer-funded service providers that they can refuse to serve LGBTQ people and families.
Now, President-elect Joe Biden and a Democratic majority in Congress are set to inherit the mess the Trump administration created, providing LGBTQ Americans with an opportunity to see the injustices of the last administration rectified, their constitutional rights upheld, and their dignity and well-being further enshrined. This will help ensure future administrations can’t undo the hard-fought progress of past decades.
In a thorough and wide-ranging new report from the Center for American Progress, authors Caroline Medina, Sharita Gruberg, Lindsay Mahowald, and Theo Santos provide the incoming administration with a road map of the myriad ways it can efficiently and effectively use executive authority to not only roll back the Trump administration’s attacks, but also strengthen existing laws to further enshrine the rights of all Americans and to proactively address disparities faced by the nation’s LGBTQ community.
“LGBTQ Americans urgently need the incoming administration to take swift and bold action to undo the damage of the Trump administration, combat discrimination, and proactively address the disparities that LGBTQ people, particularly LGBTQ people of color, face,” said Sharita Gruberg, senior director for the LGBTQ Research and Communications Project at CAP and an author of the report. “When Trump entered the White House, 1 in 4 LGBTQ Americans reported experiencing discrimination in the prior year. Now, that has risen to more than 1 in 3 LGBTQ Americans. The pandemic, economic crisis, and four years under a government that sanctioned discrimination have deepened the disparities faced by LGBTQ people. We need an administration that makes equality a priority, and the recommendations in this report directly address these needs.”
Read the report: “Improving the Lives and Rights of LGBTQ People in America: A Road Map for the Biden Administration” by Caroline Medina, Sharita Gruberg, Lindsay Mahowald, and Theo Santos
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Adam Peck at [email protected].