BY WILLIAM FEOLA
As the first-year anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration passed a few days ago, many communities, including the LGBTQ+ community, have begun to look back on the past 365 days and many are not happy with the president thus far.
During President Trumps campaign he promised to protect the LGBTQ+ community and even posed with an LGBTQ+ flag to signal that he was a different kind of Republican, but unfortunately for many in the community he seemingly turned out to be everything he said he wasn’t.
“I think that overall, as far as progress goes, the gay community has remained fairly stagnant since his inauguration,” Rachael Klane, a 22-year-old biology major and a member of the LGBTQ+ community said. “What really bothers me though is that Trumps promises to the community were blatantly disregarded and frankly I feel like Trump doesn’t really care about the gays.”
Despite promising protection to the community, Trump revoked an Obama-era guidance protecting transgender students in public schools and even went as far as to disregard various issues, leaving it up to the states, which did not bode well for the LGBTQ+ students. Protections for these students in public schools are dwindling and students who are apart of the community are not happy about it.
This poll done by TIME magazine and this timeline made by the Boston Globe further show and help justify the distrust the community has with President Trump. Nearly 67% of the LGBTQ+ community say they feel less safe since the president took over and 92% feel the country is going in the wrong direction.
“I feel like Donald Trump has zero regard for the LGBTQ+ community,” said Jessica Bryan, a 21-year-old history major who is also member of the LGBTQ+ community. “I personally feel like I cannot be myself even more than before he was president.”
Events mentioned in the timeline like President Trump nominating a Cabinet full of Anti-LGBTQ+ members and Trump disbanding the HIV/AIDS council without explanation are two of many reasons why the community is not happy with the president thus far. The community hopes for better results in 2018, but as the polls and interviews show, they don’t seem overly confident.
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