For the second year in a row, President Trump has failed to acknowledge June as LGBT Pride Month.
Under Presidents Clinton and Obama, that was a tradition. After the Supreme Court declared marriage equality to be the law of the land in 2016, the White House was lit with the colors of the Pride flag.
In June 2016, then-candidate Trump tweeted, “Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.”
That turned out to be one of Trump’s numerous lies about policy. The Trump administration’s record has been resoundingly anti-LGBT.
Since Trump took office, language about LGBT protections has been removed from government websites and certain protections for transgender schoolchildren have been withdrawn. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department would no longer defend transgender people from workplace discrimination under Title VII, and Trump attempted to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military.
Trump’s initial announcement of the ban in July 2017 — made suddenly over Twitter, catching even the highest-ranking members of the military off guard — was widely viewed as another attempt to divert from the Russia probe by stoking another culture war.
But this month, Trump seems to be occupied on that front, as the crisis builds over forced immigrant-child separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, a new policy Sessions announced in early April.
Last Friday, the administration quietly announced it would no longer seek the transgender military ban, Newsweek reported.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been the only member of the administration to acknowledge Pride Month. “The United States joins people around the world in celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) Pride Month, and reaffirms its commitment to protecting and defending the human rights of all, including LGBTI persons,” he said in a statement.
