LGBTQ members and supporters hit a new level of anger and defeat when they saw the LGBT page deleter from the White House website.
Many people have been terrified of newly elected President Donald J. Trump’s anticipated changes in our country, so it’s no surprise that they felt the same fear when they discovered that on the day of President Trump’s inauguration, January 20th, 2017, the White House had taken down the LGBT rights web page. The removal has spiked many fears, concerns and worries for members and supporters of LGBTQ, as well as has been taken as a sign that things will get worse for the LGBTQ community.
“I was expecting stuff like this to happen,” said sophomore Danny Whiting, an LGBTQ member and the president of Woodside High School’s GSA Club. “I was expecting bills to be countered of some of the gay marriage right movements, and so on and so forth. I wasn’t, like, fully surprised, but I was still, like, hoping it would turn out better.”
LGBTQ suppporters are wondering what the future holds. They question whether it will harm or benefit their community, and if they can prevent the inevitable.
“I think, really, at the moment, there’s not a lot that we can specifically politically change,” Whitig said. “Because there are certain things we cannot enforce by law, but, like, people need to learn to respect the LGBTQ community more than they do now.”
Many are taking the action of the removal of the LGBT page as a sign that President Trump is going to start down a homophobic path.
“Its obvious, like, a very open way to start his time in the office that’s very openly homophobic,” Whiting said. “Like, it’s like openly like ‘yeah we don’t care about this, let’s get rid of it at all forever.’”
Some people are angered by what has happened and many are scared for their future and the future of their friends, for they take it as an omen that things will turn for the worst for them.
“Honestly,” said sophomore LGBTQ member and supporter, ZeeJai Leonard, “I’m not entirely sure, I mean, I hope they don’t too much too drastically for the worst. I’m scared for the future and scared for the future of some of my friends, just because like America is supposed to be a like safe place where like in theory it should be a nice place for people to reside comfortably.”
Members and supporters of LGBTQ people have analyzed the LGBT page’s removal as a sign. Many are angry and many more are scared for what the future holds, but one thing is for sure, they will keep fighting their battle until the very and.
“I never think that it’s too late to change anything,” Whiting said. “Obviously I would hope that it’s too late to go back on the forward progress, as in, you know, it’s too late to take down gay marriage rights ‘cause it might be declared unconstitutional, but I hope that we can continue to move forward.”
