Donald Trump does not see trans people ‘with dignity’ and has ‘fuelled the flames of transphobia’, says Joe Biden
US President Donald Trump (L) and Democratic Presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden. (JIM WATSON,SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty)
With thinly-veiled barbs, Joe Biden blasted Donald Trump as a leader who does not see “the humanity and dignity of transgender people” as he called for sweeping economic and criminal justice reforms to better support victims of transphobic violence.
In a statement shared to the press Friday (16 October), in which the Democratic presidential candidate says more on trans rights than Donald Trump ever has, he attacked the Trump administration for fuelling “the flames of transphobia in our nation”.
In the throes of a spiralling “epidemic” of transphobic killings, monitoring groups soberly say that 33 trans people have been slain in the US this year alone.
“This is the highest number on record with more than two months left in the year, and the vast majority are Black and Brown transgender women,” the statement read.
“It’s unacceptable.”
INBOX: Statement by Vice President Joe Biden on the Epidemic of Violence Against Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People pic.twitter.com/ypm6pfTZ0Z
— Johnny Verhovek (@JTHVerhovek) October 16, 2020
Deaths of 33 trans people ‘didn’t happen in a vacuum’, says Joe Biden.
The former vice president said those deaths “didn’t happen in a vacuum”, lasering in on the vicious volley of transphobic policies that have stoked further hatred.
There are many. Trump and other party leaders have sought to drive a wedge between the LGB and T in a slew of attacks against trans people’s civil rights across several federal departments.
A pointless Department of Defence ban on trans troops, a rollback of healthcare protections by the Department of Health and Human Services, a proposal to allow homeless shelters to deny trans people access to single-sex shelters by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and efforts by the Education Department to both block trans students from using the bathroom which aligns with their gender, but also banning trans girls from joining female track teams in Connecticut high schools.
Despite this onslaught that has reduced one of the country’s most vulnerable and marginalised demographics to a political target, these policies are scarcely in the public’s interest.
Indeed, a majority of Americans – 62 per cent – have become more supportive of trans rights in recent years, according to a 2019 survey. Even among one of the Republican’s most relied-upon voting bloc, white evangelicals, a slim majority support trans rights.
Biden’s statement expanded on much of what the moderate lawmaker outlined during his NBC town hall event Thursday (15 October).
He vowed to “flat out change the law” if elected president to better protect LGBT+ rights, which includes reversing many of Trump’s corrosive anti-trans laws as well as enacting the Equality Act, a proposed plank of equality law.
