After election, LGBT community greatly disturbed by Trump, Pence-run White House

By Albie Nicol

You need to understand the reason I’m upset about the election isn’t about the election itself. I’m not upset that I “didn’t get my way.”

This is about what lies ahead for multiple communities I belong to and my friends belong to. In January of 2016, Trump said he would “strongly consider” appointing judges to overturn the Marriage Equality Act. He then announced Pence as his running mate, who during his time as governor of Indiana, has a history of supporting anti-LGBTQIA bills. Trump voiced his support for HB2 law in North Carolina, which made it so students had to use the bathroom their sex “matched” with.

One of the scariest positions, in my opinion, is Pence on conversion therapy. This is from his website in 2001 about where federal dollars should go:  from the “organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus” to “those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”

Trump himself has promised he will sign the “First Amendment Defense Act,” which allows discrimination on religious grounds and stops the government from taking action against any person who “believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman.”

As a genderfluid/transgender bisexual identifying individual, I am afraid for my life. I am afraid of discrimination. I am afraid of a Trump presidency.

I know there are people out there who feel like they can vote for Trump and still support me, but I do not believe so. A vote for Trump is a vote validating all of the above.

In case you haven’t heard,  junior Sam Potter was already harassed this last week about her sexual orientation and political views. When she stood up against Trump supporters on social issues, she was berated and called horrible slurs based on her sexual orientation.

Discrimination is not just happening in big cities or on college campuses. It is happening here.

So no — I do not want to hear “Nothing is going to change for the lgbt. Trump can’t take your rights away.”

These are things I have heard from supposed friends of mine, and things I contest and cannot believe because that is not the reality of a Trump/Pence term in the White House. You cannot speak for or tell the community what is going to happen to them, or how they should feel, because you are not a part of the community unless you identify as one of the acronymed terms.

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