TRANSCRIPT
At the start of every new administration, there is traditionally an interfaith prayer service held at Washington Cathedral.
This year, the Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde had a particular message for Donald Trump.
“Let me make one final plea, Mr President. Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
The Reverend was highlighting the concerns of the LGBTIQ plus community who had watched with growing alarm during the election campaign as millions of dollars worth of anti-trans and LGBTIQ plus ads were run in prime time.
“Kamala Harris is for they/them. Donald Trump is for you.”
Shoshana Goldberg from the Human Rights Campaign said in 2024 that these ads - along with a number of state-based bills restricting transgender rights - were making a lot of people nervous and scared.
“Just the existence of these bills and the messages that they send and the rhetoric that are associated with them are causing LGBT adults to feel unsafe.”
But advocates say Donald Trump has not heeded the Bishop's message.
In one of his first acts as President, he's taken a scorched earth approach to gender.
“As of today it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
There's also been orders on diversity.
While civil rights advocates have argued such programs are necessary to address longstanding inequities and structural racism, Mr Trump and his supporters say DEI programs end up unfairly discriminating against other Americans and weaken the importance of candidates' qualifications for a role.
Accordingly President Trump has so far rescinded 78 executive orders that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion and promoted rights for LGBTIQ plus people and racial minorities.
One of those was the 1965 edict from then-President Lyndon Johnson to protect the rights of workers employed by federal contractors and ensure they remained free from discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.
“The country is going to be based on merit again. Can you believe it?”
A memo from the Office of Personnel Management has already directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI staff be put on paid leave, and that agencies develop plans to fire them.
One high ranking official has already lost their job at least partly because of their pursuit of diversity and inclusion initiatives: U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Lee Fagan.
Joe Biden had appointed her as the first woman to lead the agency.
“A promotion earned through a career of outstanding leadership and accomplishment. Now we need to keep working to make sure Admiral Fagan may be the first, but not the only person. We need to see more women at the highest levels of command in the Coast Guard and across every service in the armed forces.”
That's been the message from civil rights groups and the Democrats too.
Representative Ilhan Omar says that many people have been highly qualified - and it was unfair to say they only got hired because of diversity initiatives.
“The misinformation and disinformation on what DEI hire has been that they're an individual hired because of their diversity. And many of these positions are positions in which the person is responsible for diversifying the workplace, for recruitment, for retention, for creating a space that is welcoming for everyone.”
Despite the pushback, Mr Trump is pushing ahead undeterred.
He has reportedly begun pressuring the private sector to join in his dropping of diversity and inclusion programs - but some - like Walmart, Lowes, McDonalds and Meta - are already there, having scaled back their initiatives in recent times.
“I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.”
Conservative commentator Robbie Starbuck has been actively lobbying for these DEI programs and policies to be dropped, telling Fox News in 2024 that he regards them as meaningless.
“We looked at all the companies across the American landscape and said, which companies depend on the conservative consumer, and let's hold them accountable for what their values are. If they're proud of them they'll stand by them, and if they're not they'll prove to be exactly what we thought they were, which is a house of cards. You just needed somebody to push the cards, and soon these companies will fall like dominoes.”
This intensifying shift to the right has been a long time coming, exemplified by the conservative-majority Supreme Court putting an end in 2023 to affirmative action in university admissions.
That was one of the major gains of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
Ash Lazarus is from the group Advocates for Trans Equality, and says these issues now dominate many Republican campaigns and agendas at a state level.
“You know, just here in West Virginia alone, there were so many folks that were running on local levels as well as for state house and state senate, who their entire campaigns were just nothing about how - if they're elected they're going to stop the woke agenda. If they're elected they're going to remove trans people from the public eye. And it's just so disheartening again to see that, rather than focusing on the very real issues impacting folks across our country, such as the rising cost of living, the climate change crisis, the growing health care deserts.”
Ash says it's the policies targeting the transgender and other gender and sexually diverse communities that are generating the most dread.
“Unfortunately the rhetoric around the trans community and the rhetoric around existing as a trans person, that rhetoric has increased exponentially.]]
And it's not just advocates in the US that are concerned.
Once government-issued IDs including passports and visas are required to "accurately reflect the holder's sex", as defined by Mr Trump's orders, it's feared gender-diverse Australians could encounter problems when travelling through the US - or be blocked from entering altogether.
There are also questions about how much of an influence these moves will make on domestic conservative agendas.
