Presumptive GOP Nominee Doesn’t See Transgender Rights ‘As Civil Rights or Not Civil Rights’
Donald Trump says that even though government has to protect everyone, he would rescind President Barack Obama‘s policies protecting transgender people, including transgender youth. The GOP presumptive nominee in an interview with The Washington Post says he doesn’t necessarily see right for transgender people as a civil rights issue, but he does see it as a states’ rights issue.
“I think we have to help people,” Trump told The Washington Post. “I don’t view it as civil rights or not civil rights. I think it’s something where we have to help people — and hopefully the states will make the right decisions.”
The Post reports Trump “offered a more nuanced outlook than many of his party’s elected leaders,” and “repeatedly said transgender people should be protected under the law and said he believed most states would ‘make the right decisions,'” despite not having done so, and often resisting opportunities to do so. He added that states “should come up with a policy that’s going to work for everybody and protect people.”
Calling transgender people “a very, very small portion of the population,” Trump said, “you have to protect everybody, including small portions of the population.”
Â
Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license