Improving the Health and Safety of Transgender and Gender Expansive People

While there is no doubt that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have come a long way in recent decades, the full realization of these rights is incomplete. Today, transgender and gender expansive people are experiencing a backlash that threatens their lives and weakens the bonds that hold our society together. On January 20th, the day he was inaugurated, President Trump issued an Executive Order that attacks the concept of gender identity and seeks to rollback existing protections for transgender and gender expansive people in federal programs. This exercise of presidential power not only seeks to negate the existence of transgender and gender expansive people, this and other orders seek to remove the promise of fair and equal treatment in federal programs and other areas of civic life for not only members of the LGBTQ community, but also people of color and others. Reframing the public dialogue around transgender and gender expansive people as part of the evolving story of America, while not a total solution may allow more people to see that, except for those seeking to exploit differences, there are few fundamental areas of conflict.

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