Our long national nightmare is just beginning.
The election of Donald Trump as the country's next president is shocking. LGBTs, minorities, women, people with disabilities – all the people he's maligned during the campaign – will be in the crosshairs come January when he is sworn in. Trump's victory, along with that of Republicans across the country, ensures that the GOP will carry out its agenda with zeal.
That the Republicans have held on to control of the U.S. Senate is deeply disappointing, and they are free to confirm conservative judges and justices. The Supreme Court will tilt conservative for a generation with Trump's appointments – including one that he'll make immediately because the Senate failed to do its job and confirm President Barack Obama's nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia. None of the potential justices Trump listed during the campaign will be good on LGBT issues, or many others we favor for that matter. The court can't undo marriage equality right now because there's no pending case challenging it – but we can't rule it out entirely. The upcoming case involving trans rights and bathroom access looks to be dead on arrival; we wish the court hadn't accepted it. Scalia's replacement won't change the conservative versus liberal makeup of the court right now, but Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on many of the court's landmark decisions involving equality, is certainly not a lock on this one.
The future of the Affordable Care Act is on life support. Look for its repeal to be one of the first things Congress will jam through next year. Goodbye to health care coverage for millions of Americans and hello to uncertainty, as Congress has no effective replacement plan and Trump hasn't outlined one either. With a GOP-controlled Congress, Trump will have carte blanche to reverse much of the progress of the last eight years. Republicans in Congress are giddy at the prospect; they've voted more than 60 times to repeal Obamacare, and now they will soon achieve their goal.
But even without congressional action, President-elect Trump can be expected to adversely affect the lives of LGBT Americans. He's already said he'll undo Obama's executive orders, and several of those affect us, like the one prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Also on the chopping block is the Education and Justice departments' joint guidance to provide educators the information they need to ensure that all students, including transgender students, can attend school in an environment free from discrimination based on sex under Title IX. Look out for the bathroom police – they're coming. By the way, there may not even be a Department of Education in the Trump administration; if it remains Trump has made clear it will play a reduced role. That will be a blow to all students.
Trump called for unity during his victory speech, but we don't see America coming together anytime soon. White, blue-collar workers turned out in droves this election, naively believing Trump's campaign promises to bring manufacturing jobs back and undo trade treaties. Here's a news flash: those factory jobs aren't coming back, even without the North American Free Trade Agreement. Studies show that immigrants aren't taking jobs from U.S. workers, but they are in Trump's America. That wall will be erected soon enough, whether or not Mexico pays for it, as Trump insists.
Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, is no better. A man who cut AIDS funding in Indiana while governor, and believes in conversion therapy, Pence's homophobia and AIDSphobia is scary 35 years into the epidemic. He will work with evangelicals to promote and pass so-called religious freedom legislation, which is really just a license to discriminate. We can imagine a national law that would undercut gains made since the legalization of same-sex marriage. But more immediately, LGBTs can forget about a vote on the Equality Act, which was introduced in Congress last year.
Trump is nothing if not a man of action. He ran an unorthodox campaign and defied conventional wisdom. To his supporters that was exhilarating. He promised to "drain the swamp." The Republican Party, intoxicated on its newfound power, will be only too happy to oblige. There was a lot of talk during the campaign about how the GOP destroyed itself with Trump – Tuesday's election showed that Americans in red and swing states took over the GOP.
We thought the presidency of George W. Bush was a disaster. We now realize that was nothing compared to what we could experience under Trump. But we must continue to live our lives openly and proudly. We must stand together with the trans community and work with allies as never before to beat back anti-LGBT laws and keep the rights we have already won.