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After Election, LGBTQ Youth Show Mix of Anxiety and Desire for Progressive Action in Trump’s America

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‘I Get Worried the World Will Leave Us Behind’

It’s not news that our world has fundamentally changed since the election of Donald Trump on November 8 of this year. Many of us have had to re-tool our expectations for what the next four years will look like. We here at The New Civil Rights Movement have certainly covered much of the fallout from the election, including the severe downturn in feelings of safety and security across the LGBTQ community. 

1.jpgAt the end of November, the Southern Poverty Law Center released the results of a study titled “The Trump Effect: The Impact of the 2016 Presidential Election on Our Nation’s Schools.” The study collected responses from over 10,000 “teachers, counselors, administrators and others who work in schools.” Shockingly, 90% of respondents said their school culture had been negatively impacted by election rhetoric, including a dramatic uptick in harassment using Confederate flags, Nazi salutes, and swastikas. 

Eight in ten educators said they’ve seen higher anxiety in marginalized students stuch as immigrants, Muslim students, and LGBTQ students, but because tensions have been running so high, many teachers are afraid to talk through the election and its aftermath in class, which could give students a chance to process their thoughts and work through their emotions in a safe environment.

NCRM spoke to a few students about what they’re thinking, feeling, and seeing in the weeks since the election.

2.jpgAlyx, a bisexual, trans high school student in New York who’s active in LGBTQ Jewish teen programs, tells us, “After the election, I’ve found myself much more detached from politics and the news. I don’t read The New York Times or the Guardian much anymore – two websites I was on all the time before the election. It’s just hard to read. It’s hard to watch while a man who preaches hate takes over the country.”  

She, like many other students we’ve spoken to, have turned the election into a call for action. “I’ve thrown myself more into the work I do, and that dominates more of my time than it used to. I try to be an advocate and an ally as best I can. One thing that I’ve tried to do is through my work planning events for LGBTQ Jewish teens is make sure people are informed about their rights and, for trans people, how to legally and medically transition.”

4.jpgSarah, a cis, lesbian student at Wellesley College says, “Even from my point of privilege as a white, middle class person in a safe environment, I’m scared. I’ve seen racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and everything else our PEOTUS lends his name to before and since the election. I’ve seen it on my own campus, and it scares me.”

In the absence of safe adults to speak to and confide in, many LGBTQ youth are turning to crisis hotlines such as The Trevor Project or Trans Lifeline. Both agencies have reported a sharp increase in election-related calls over the past month.

Not everyone thinks the next four years will be as taxing as others have predicted. Gregory Angelo, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, told VOA that Trump’s statement that he’ll “be a real friend to the LGBT community” shows that the anxiety shared by many is a result of “myths that were perpetuated by Democrats during the campaign” rather than from empirical evidence. 

However, in the weeks since his election, President Elect Trump has yet to nominate a single candidate for his cabinet who fully supports LGBTQ rights and equality. But he has placed high in his transition team at least one member of an anti-gay hate group.

Much like the greater population, not every young person is feeling anxious about a Trump presidency, but many are certainly affected by the emotions of those around them and the assumption that they’re supposed to think the same things their friends think. 

Sterling, a bisexual, trans high school student from Connecticut tells us, “I, personally, don’t feel scared for President Elect Trump to enter office. The reactions of Republicans and Democrats alike scare me.” Because he didn’t identify with either side’s reaction to the election, he was fearful he would be characterized as “a self-hating, ignorant LGBT person.”

But Sterling wasn’t immune to the anxiety many others are feeling, either. He continues, “The night it was announced that President Elect Trump won, a friend of mine who is a Democrat and transgender sent me a series of texts about how we’re all doomed and that my friend wants to kill themself.”

3.jpgThrough all of the rhetoric, one message has stayed true and clear: LGBT youth are looking to their teachers, their families, and their communities to support them, protect them, and celebrate them for who they are now and the adults they will soon become. And they see the possible opportunity in the fallout.

Sarah adds, “The one thing I’m grateful for in the aftermath of the election is that finally non-marginalized communities are seeing it too. The reason marginalized groups are targeted is because we are assumed to be powerless, but we are not. Queers, people of color, Jews, Muslims – we are everywhere and we are fighting. We’re using this to bring attention to the hate and discrimination that we’ve always faced, and although we’re scared, this is a time to band together to work toward equality.”

Chris, a recent Pennsylvania high school graduate who identifies as non-binary and pansexual sums up the current attitudes of many succinctly: “Since the election, I’ve been afraid. When I look at everything that’s been lined up to be destroyed I get worried that the world will just leave us behind, and sometimes I fear they may do worse. But I know that humanity’s real successes have been a direct result of opposition; change never is/was/will be easy, and that’s why despite whatever fears and doubts I have, I know we can make it through and be better for it.”

 

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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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21 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

 

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