Biden Recognizes Pride Month, Vows to Fight for LGBT Rights

The Trump/Pence regime waged a relentless war against LGBT Americans during its four years of misrule with an aim of stripping away protections and making life as difficult and insecure as possible, especially for transgender individuals.  It was part and parcel with Trump's promise to give evangelicals and Christofascists a license to discriminate against LGBT citizens.  President Biden has been working to reverse all of the Trump regime's attacks on LGBT Americans, including barring discrimination in health care services. Now, with the commencement of Pride month, Biden has not only issued a proclamation recognizing Pride, but he has also promised to continue to work LGBT citizens equal under the law.  Thankfully, in Virginia - due to Democrat control of the General Assembly and the governor's mansion - we now have nondiscrimination protections in employment, housing and public accommodation.  LGBT individuals  in 29 states are not so lucky.  A piece in the New York Times looks at how Biden is reversing Trump's policies of bigotry and discrimination.  Here are excerpts:

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Tuesday issued a presidential proclamation recognizing June as Pride Month, vowing to fight for full equality for the L.G.B.T.Q. community to be codified into law.

The official acknowledgment of Pride, a month typically defined for many in the community by marches, parades and parties across the United States, offered Mr. Biden his latest opportunity to contrast his own priorities with those of his most recent predecessor.

Last year, President Donald J. Trump steadfastly ignored Pride, refusing to acknowledge the celebration with even a presidential tweet. Embassies overseas were prohibited from flying the Pride flag.

The Trump administration also rolled back a 2016 regulation that mandated health care as a civil right for transgender patients under the Affordable Care Act, and activists worried that their rights were being systematically scrubbed after L.G.B.T. rights pages quietly disappeared in 2017 from the official White House website and other federal websites.

“For the past four years, it was difficult to get out of bed,” said Alphonso B. David, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group. “It was difficult to get out of bed because you understood that you, your being, your identity were being assaulted.”

That was then.

On Tuesday, the White House noted that “after four years of relentless attacks on L.G.B.T.Q.+ rights, the Biden-Harris administration has taken historic actions to accelerate the march toward full L.G.B.T.Q.+ equality.”

Since taking office, Mr. Biden has sought to restore civil rights protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people that were eliminated by Mr. Trump. On his first day as president, Mr. Biden signed an executive order that combats discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.

That resulted in the Department of Health and Human Services prohibiting providers from discriminating against gay and transgender individuals and restoring protections for transgender people seeking emergency shelter and homeless services.

And during his first address to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Biden said he would continue pressing lawmakers to pass the Equality Act, which would provide civil rights protections to the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

[T]he White House noted on Tuesday that 14 percent of all presidential appointees identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer. Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, was the first openly gay cabinet secretary confirmed by the Senate, and Dr. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, was the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate.

But state legislatures across the country are advancing measures that seek to limit rights. On Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, signed into law a bill that barred transgender female student-athletes from competing in women’s sports. Across the country, there are currently 250 bills that seek to target transgender people and limit local protections. Of those, 24, including Mr. DeSantis’s bill, have been signed, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Mr. Biden, a politician whose own views on gay rights have evolved over his decades in public life, did not always identify with the positions of the L.G.B.T.Q. activists with whom he consulted during the presidential transition, seeking policy recommendations.

Some of his Democratic presidential primary opponents, like Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, tried to make an issue of those votes during the campaign last year. But gay rights advocates have generally accepted that the views of Democratic leaders have evolved significantly over the years, and they credit Mr. Biden with being ahead of many other elected officials in his party.

As vice president, for instance, Mr. Biden was the highest-ranking Democrat to initially endorse same-sex marriage in 2012, disclosing his position in a television interview. He was credited with pushing President Barack Obama to express his support for gay marriage a few days later.