It’s easy to view President Donald Trump as a clownish caricature; however, no matter his level of blustering buffoonery, we can’t discount the effect his rhetoric is and will have on the country, and our community in particular.
Just last week, Trump proclaimed he was single-handedly banning all transgender-identifying Americans from serving in the country’s armed forces. It was a stunning pronouncement, one whose parameters are still being sorted out. But the power of Trump’s claim reverberates far beyond the military.
Just days later, radio program “Breakfast Club” featured a comedian who remarked that if he unwittingly slept with a transgender woman, he would kill her. The comedian later claimed the comment was a “joke” but he and the show’s hosts have come under intense fire for promoting violence against trans women.
The impact of such statements was starkly illustrated with the murder of Tee Tee Dangerfield, a trans woman of color gunned down in suburban Atlanta Monday morning. Police have not released a motive for her killing but said they are considering anti-trans bias.
The epidemic of violence toward trans women, particularly women of color, was surely existent prior to Trump arriving in the Oval Office. But his “leadership” has certainly done little to quell the simmering hate that makes such a trend possible and instead has fanned the flames.
When the leader of the nation states that an entire class of people would be a “distraction” and “burden” to one of our nation’s institutions, that sends myriad messages. To trans Americans, it’s an affirmation of the exclusionary attitudes so many have sought to overcome, internally and externally, for years. To those who do not know trans Americans, it’s a validation of fear of the unknown, a rubber stamp to hate.
With waves of violence claiming trans lives, a real leader should be striving to root out the causes of bias and prejudice, not strengthening them. Most in our community have long accepted that Trump is anything but a leader. But, unfortunately, he has the bully pulpit of one — meaning his ignorance has the ability to be amplified and the LGBT and ally community needs to use its own collective voice to drown out his hate.