It’s an odd dichotomy: President Trump appoints the highest-ranking brazenly homosexual authorities official in historical past in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, but he launches merciless assaults on transgender Individuals.
Make no mistake: These assaults are claiming lives. Trans persons are killing themselves. I do know of 1 trans one that died by suicide on Election Night time, overwhelmed by concern of the incoming administration. Trump’s assaults have pushed trans Individuals and their households to flee the nation and transfer to Canada, because the Blade has reported.
None of that is hypothetical or melodramatic. It’s actual life and occurring in all places.
And so when Bessent was confirmed as Treasury Secretary, I wrote an op-ed urging him to coach Trump in regards to the plight of trans Individuals and the destructiveness of the assaults on the group. I waited 90 days for some signal that Bessent has a coronary heart or at the very least a modicum of decency however sadly, I need to report that he doesn’t.
The assaults on the LGBTQ group below Trump maintain coming. Final week’s information that the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers is planning to retire the nationwide 988 disaster lifeline for LGBTQ youth on Oct. 1 is simply the newest proof that this administration doesn’t simply dislike us — they need us lifeless.
“Ending the 988 Suicide and Disaster Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ youth specialised companies is not going to simply strip away entry from hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ children and teenagers — it’ll put their lives in danger,” Trevor Venture CEO Jaymes Black stated in an announcement.
The service for LGBTQ youth has obtained 1.3 million calls, texts, or chats since its debut, with a median of two,100 contacts per day in February.
Make no mistake: slicing this service will kill younger LGBTQ folks.
Simply a few weeks earlier, Trump’s administration introduced the Workplace of Infectious Illness and HIV/AIDS Coverage could be gutted.
“In a matter of only a couple days, we’re shedding our nation’s means to forestall HIV,” stated HIV+Hepatitis Coverage Institute Government Director Carl Schmid.
And previous to that, Trump issued a sequence of govt orders focusing on the trans group — limiting entry to affirming healthcare, banning trans service members from the army, barring trans girls and women from enjoying sports activities, eliminating the “X” gender marker on passports, and barring college students assigned male at start from utilizing girls’s restrooms.
Let’s be very clear: While you deny somebody the flexibility to make use of the lavatory, you deny their humanity.
So again to Scott Bessent, the billionaire hedge fund supervisor now working our economic system into the bottom. As many Trump protesters have famous: silence is complicity. And Bessent has been silent on all of those horrific assaults on trans Individuals and their fundamental humanity. He’s spineless and a traitor to the LGBTQ group.
Bessent runs the U.S. Treasury and reportedly has Trump’s ear on all issues associated to the economic system. He might simply push Trump in a greater, extra compassionate path, but there isn’t a proof he has accomplished that.
“The LGBTQ+ group is relying on brazenly LGBTQ+ nominees like Scott Bessent to step up for the group,” stated Human Rights Marketing campaign President Kelley Robinson after the inauguration. Sadly, it’s grow to be clear we can’t depend on Bessent. As I wrote in January, Trump likes his queer folks homosexual, white, cis, wealthy, and obedient.
Bessent has ignored the Blade’s interview requests. (And after that is printed, I’ve no illusions he’ll change his thoughts.) The mainstream media, more and more cowed by Trump, have didn’t ask Bessent even essentially the most fundamental questions on his views on trans equality and Trump’s assaults.
As a member of the LGBTQ group, Bessent has a duty to at the very least communicate up on behalf of trans people who find themselves struggling. However Republicans as we speak have misplaced their spines. They genuflect earlier than their Expensive Chief, line their very own pockets, and depart the remainder of us to cope with the results.
The disaster is actual. Individuals are dying. Trans folks particularly are struggling. The remainder of us should do what we will to mitigate that struggling and to talk out in protection of our trans associates.
Kevin Naff is editor of the Washington Blade. Attain him at [email protected].
