'Death by a thousand cuts': LGBT rights fading under Trump, advocates sayhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/30/lgbt-rights-under-trumpThe Guardian
Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington
Thursday 30 March 2017 09.06 EDT
From the article:
The latest missive arrived on Wednesday, when the US Census Bureau said a proposal to count LGBT Americans in its 2020 report and annual survey had been a mistake. The agency said it had "inadvertently listed sexual orientation and gender identity as a proposed topic". Last week, the Trump administration deleted questions on sexual orientation from at least two other government surveys.
Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), said the move was a deliberate effort by the Trump administration "to erase LGBTQ people from federal data used to inform budgets and policies across the government".
"Their intent is clear," Griffin said in a statement. "By denying we exist, the Trump administration hopes to deny us equality. It won't work."
* * * * *
Separately, Trump signed into law on Monday a bill overturning a Barack Obama executive order that required companies seeking contracts with the federal government to show compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws.
* * * * *
"We are seeing this broader trend of erasing and eliminating any consideration of the needs of LGBT people in this administration," [Sharon McGowan, the director of strategy at Lambda Legal, the country's oldest and largest LGBT legal organization] said.
"We are starting to see what the death by a thousand cuts looks like."
