A Friend To The Community? I Think Not.

Posted on November 9, 2020

I didn’t vote for Donald Trump when he ran four years ago. I didn’t vote for him this time either, but very different reasons. I worried four years ago about what he might do. He had great sound bytes. “Drain the swamp” won’t go away anytime soon. Did he mean it? No, and even he admitted later it was just a campaign trick. The phrase worked with a great many people. I couldn’t get a handle on him, though. I work with words. I know the power of them. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what he stood for. And this campaign? I still am not entirely sure what he stands for, but I’ve seen what he’s done to the community I’m a part of.

Donald Trump sees himself as a friend to the gay community. The Log Cabin Republicans even boasted that Trump is the most pro-gay President in American history. It became apparent to me after reading the rationale behind that statement that the Log Cabin Republicans have as shaky a take on reality and Donald does. Do your friends behave like Donald Trump? Mine don’t.

Ever hear of the Equality Act? It was to guarantee non-discrimination protections for LGBT folks like myself. Donald Trump opposed it. Employment discrimination? His administration provided amicus briefs allowing businesses to discriminate against us. Obama-era non-discrimination protections? Gone. He had the HHS remove protections for LGBTQ people from the Affordable Care Act. He had the HHS create the Religious Discrimination Division that went on to allow physicians or other medical professionals to not treat us if they didn’t want to. Never mind the Hippocratic Oath.

Foster agencies were allowed to discriminate, visas for same-sex partners were denied for some UN and diplomats, and let’s count the number of times gay US citizens have had to go to court to get their surrogate children citizenship.

Here’s another one for you. Within a couple of hours after Donald Trump was sworn in, guess what was removed from government websites, including the White House? Information on LGBTQ rights. Gone. Eliminated. No mention of us. Our community depends on resources from the government. How do some of those resources come our way? Through the census. Guess what questions were removed from the census? Yup. Anything to do with sexual orientation.

Kristoffer Gair voted.

No Pride flags flown at our embassies during Pride Month. No condemnation on the attacks of gay people in Chechnya. There’s a list here, folks, and don’t even get me started on the stance he and his administration took on Transgender people. Donald Trump wanted them out of the military, allowed shelters to deny access to transgender folks, and even had HUD remove LGBTQ from a homeless survey. There can’t be a problem unless you’re allowed to see it. And Donald Trump clearly didn’t want us to be seen.

This is a man who is a friend to our community? No. This is a friend who smiles to your face, then knees you in the balls, laughs, and walks away talking about you behind your back. That’s the man I see. That’s the man I believe Donald Trump is, and has been.

This is why I didn’t vote for him.

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Kristoffer Gair (who formerly wrote under the pseudonym Kage Alan) is the Detroit-based author of Honor Unbound, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Sexual Orientation, Andy Stevenson Vs. The Lord Of The Loins, Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell, several short stories featured in anthologies (to be combined in a forthcoming book), the recently re-published novella Falling Awake, its sequel, Falling Awake II: Revenant and Falling Awake III: Requiem.