Sadiq Khan says Donald Trump’s ‘deplorable’ views on LGBT+ rights ‘showed us who he is’ well before Capitol riots
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. (Victoria Jones – WPA Pool/Getty)
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan opened up about the simmering fear he has felt over the last four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, dubbing his views on LGBT+ rights “deplorable”.
In a tweet posted Thursday afternoon (7 January), Khan expanded upon an interview he did earlier that day with the radio station LBC, discussing the chaotic scenes of an extreme, white supremacist mob tearing through Capitol Hill, Washington DC, the day prior.
“Donald Trump showed us who he was some years ago,” Khan said, “with his deplorable views on race, women, LGBTQ+ rights and much more – and I’m proud to have called him out on it.”
Khan also quoted poet Maya Angelou, saying: “When somebody shows us who they are, believe them the first time.”
Sadiq Khan condemns ‘frightening’ Donald Trump over Capitol riots.
Indeed, Sadiq Khan and Donald Trump, both outspoken critics of the other, have for years feuded during their respective leaderships – trading barbs across interviews and tweets over everything from Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union to domestic terrorism and religion.
Khan tore into Trump’s efforts to stoke up hatred among angered MAGA supporters who attempted to disrupt the peaceful transition of American power through brute force, desecrating the sacred chambers with a swaggering disdain.
Host James O’Brien asked whether he has ever been “frightened” during the Trump presidency.
“Yes, there are many occasions over the last four and a half years where I’ve been frightened,” he replied.
“If I’m being brutally blunt, when you speak to Muslims around the globe, many of them have felt frightened over the last four and a half/five years because what people don’t realise is it isn’t just Trump.
“He inspires, he normalises, a set of beliefs and behaviour from others, his followers, his fans, which can lead to people like me having their life threatened literally and needing to have police protection literally, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“What you saw last night was, I’m afraid, inevitable. As heartbreaking as it is, as it angry as it makes us, the seed of US democracy being attacked in this way by this mob and these rioters.”
Donald Trump has an appalling track record with LGBT+ rights.
The outgoing US president has a troubling track record with LGBT+ rights, both before and during his time in office.
Trump was openly against marriage equality since 2000. He shrugged off the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on marriage equality, reacting with glib disapproval, and openly said he disproved of it before and during his 2016 campaign.
The Trump administration has overseen rocketing rates of anti-LGBT+ hate crimes and mass rollbacks of protections, all the while peddling vastly symbolic schemes, such as pledges to end HIV transmission or the criminalisation of homosexuality.
These pledges have either been rife with problems, or total inaction.
Moreover, 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 branches of the federal department.
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.
